Verstappen driving style crucial to Perez education at Red Bull

Sergio Perez has revealed to paying close attention to Max Verstappen's driving style in a bid to help him get on top of his Red Bull this Formula 1 season.

From a pitlane start in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix after the RB16B shutdown on the formation lap before being rebooted, Perez managed to fight his way through to fifth.

Across the weekend, Perez has confirmed he "learned a lot", notably in watching Verstappen and his handling of the car in order to extract performance.

"I learned more about Max’s driving style and how the car has to be driven to extract the maximum from it," said Perez.

"I think that was the biggest learning, I know what balance I need from the car throughout the weekend.

"It really was eventful [in Bahrain]. I thought the race was over before we even started, but we were lucky to get the car going.

"It’s always important to maximise the ‘bad days’ and get the most out of them and in the end, it was a very positive race recovery with some good points scored for the team.

"I think it was also very important to drive those kilometres and complete the race distance in order to get up to speed quickly with the car, the team and all of the processes."

Heading into this weekend's second race of the campaign at Imola, Perez feels the track will play a key role in determining whether the fight with Mercedes "is circuit related".

"It will be interesting to see how we are in Imola, on a very different track to Bahrain, and see how we compare against them," added Perez.

"My goal is to have a good race and I’m looking forward to the weekend. Hopefully, in Imola, we can come back and be in contention to fight for a podium and hopefully the win.

"Unlike Bahrain, qualifying is very important at Imola as you can hardly overtake there but I like it."

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