Sergio Perez fears rivals are 'too FAR away' for Red Bull

Perez op Circuit Gilles Villeneuve — Photo: © LAT Images

Singapore Grand Prix

Perez fears rivals are 'too FAR away' for Red Bull

Both Red Bull drivers have failed to make an impression so far at the Marina Bay circuit

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Friday 15 September 2023 21:12

Sergio Perez believes his Red Bull team are 'too far away' from Ferrari at the Singapore Grand Prix.

His comments came after a difficult Friday for Red Bull, where they appeared to be off the pace in both FP1 and FP2.

Perez's team-mate Max Verstappen did manage to claim third in FP1, but in the session later in the day which was the first real test of where each team were at this weekend, they could only manage seventh and eighth.

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In fact, Perez was 0.692 seconds behind the leading Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, with Verstappen a further 0.040 seconds back.

Both Verstappen and Perez spoke of a lack of traction, and lots of oversteer throughout the two sessions, with Perez even complaining over the radio that he felt like he was going to "crash at every braking point".

It leaves Red Bull playing catch up with Ferrari, and indeed Mercedes, particularly as qualifying is so important around the Marina Bay circuit with limited overtaking opportunities.

“I think there’s some interesting bits going on that we need to figure out overnight hopefully," Perez told Sky Sports F1 after FP2.

"We seem to be struggling quite a bit with the rear end of the car. Especially in FP2, so plenty of things to look at and hopefully we can come up with the best possible setup because we know that qualifying it’s very important."

Impressive Ferraris at Singapore

Verstappen has looked unstoppable in 2023, winning 12 of the 14 races so far, including 10 in a row

Red Bull are looking to claim their 16th race victory in a row, and their 25th in the last 26 races going back to 2022, such has been their dominance over the past two seasons in Formula 1.

The circuit has proven to be somewhat of a bogey track for the team, particularly for Verstappen who has never won there since his debut round the track in 2015.

Last year, Perez did manage to come through and win the race, but Verstappen was left in seventh after making mistakes in both qualifying and the race.

It was Ferrari who, surprisingly, impressed the most on Friday, taking a one-two in both practice sessions and putting their hand up as favourites going into Saturday's crucial qualifying session.

They hadn't been expecting to be particularly quick in Singapore, after arguably their strongest race of the season last time out in Monza.

There, they managed to take pole position away from Verstappen and then stay ahead of him for 14 laps, before finishing third and fourth.

If they manage to do the same on Saturday, it's likely they will be able to stay ahead for a while longer due to the lack of overtaking opportunities around the Marina Bay circuit.

“We did expect the Ferrari to be very strong around here," Perez continued.

"We [are] just too far away. Hopefully tomorrow we are able to close the gap a bit more, but I do expect quite a challenge. I think come Q3, it should be all very straightforward, but I don’t think we are relying anything on that.

"The main thing is to make sure we are able to improve the balance that so far, we are far off."