Red Bull ‘got a few things wrong’ in Australia despite P2 – Perez

Sergio Perez has urged Red Bull to improve after the team “got a few things wrong” during the Australian Grand Prix weekend.

The Mexican had a battling race against the two Mercedes on Sunday, producing three nice overtakes on Lewis Hamilton and George Russell to run third, the highlight of which was a sweeping move around the outside of the seven-time world champion approaching Turn 9.

“Always racing with Lewis it is very entertaining,” Checo said post-race. “He’s a very, very hard racer, but very fair. We always have fun together!

“My first stint was very poor,” he continued. “In terms of degradation, we struggled quite a lot. With the Safety Car, we were a bit unlucky and we lost two positions, which we recovered later.”

Once ahead of the Silver Arrows, Perez then inherited second after teammate Max Verstappen retired with a fuel system problem.

“It’s a good result,” he added. “But unfortunately we lost Max. It would have been great to have a double podium for the team. We’ve been a bit too unlucky in the first two races.”

Red Bull though was no match for the pace of race winner Charles Leclerc, who finished 20 seconds clear of Perez.

“Ferrari was super-strong today, we couldn’t match them at any point. It’s the first weekend that they are a step ahead,” he conceded.

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“[Previously] I think we’ve been really close in qualifying, the race. Even yesterday I felt we were a little bit closer than we showed, but I think today they were on another level.

“We got a few things wrong across the weekend and we were battling more with Mercedes than Ferrari so the pace wasn’t where we want it to be, but we will work on it.”

Of particular concern was Red Bull’s lack of performance in the corners, with Perez and Verstappen having moments at Turn 13 across the weekend.

“Sector 3 was really weak for us. We had to do a lot of compromises for that which really affected us throughout the circuit,” Sergio explained.

“It shows that that corner [Turn 13] in particular, we are very sensitive and it’s very easy to get it wrong.

“We also were a bit too poor with our balance. We took a bit of a wrong direction with the car, so I think there is analysis to be done.

“We ran the two cars a bit different so also there’s analysis to do [comparing them]. I am sure we will learn a lot from this weekend because we seem to be a bit harder on tyres than Ferrari.

“We want to be up there fighting with them and today that wasn’t the case. If we can improve the car a little, then we can be more confident.”