Perez experience "very useful" to Red Bull

Sergio Perez is proving "very useful" to Red Bull due to his experience of working with other teams in F1.

Red Bull has joined Mercedes at the front of the field this season and would have led the constructors' championship into the summer break had it not been for two incident-strewn races in Britain and Hungary yielding just two points.

Mexican Perez joined from the team that is now Aston Martin, having also driven for Sauber and McLaren earlier in his career, becoming the first driver since Mark Webber to join from outside the Red Bull junior programme.

Asked on the Talking Bull podcast how closely the aerodynamic engineers work with the drivers to develop the car, chief technical officer Adrian Newey said: "They have a big influence.

"The fact is that from the data we measure on the car from the hundreds of sensors we have on aerodynamics and vehicle dynamics etcetera, they kind of tell you what the car is doing but it is the driver who is much better at telling you why it is doing it.

"It is then a matter of trying to marry the driver's comments to the sensors. I think that is one of the fascinating bits of the sport is trying to factor in the human input into what is otherwise a data driver exercise.

"So yes, their comments are very important and having Sergio join us this year with his experience from other teams is also very useful.

"It is not since we had Mark and DC that we have had drivers that have not come through the Red Bull driver programme, so having experience from other teams just gives a different perspective and input to what we had from the other guys."

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