Sergio Perez circles out area of improvement for Red Bull amid disappointing Italian GP result

Sergio Perez believes balance issues remain the area Red Bull struggled with the most at the 2024 Italian GP at the Monza circuit. Speaking to media, including Sportskeeda, after the race, he felt that the medium tire performance remained the trickiest throughout the race.

The performance margin between McLaren and Red Bull in Zandvoort was alarming enough to suggest that the reigning champions were struggling. However, coming into Monza, both Red Bull drivers struggled during the practice sessions itself. Sergio Perez qualified eighth and finished in eighth place. His triple champion teammate Max Verstappen qualified seventh and was only able to finish a place higher, in sixth place.

Analyzing the performance of the Red Bull RB20 at Monza, Sergio Perez was surprised to have a frustrating race. He reckoned they did not expect it to be such a struggle, particularly the degradation with the medium tire. Both drivers were also compromised with their tire strategy, where they started on the hard tire.

Asked by Sportskeeda if it was a frustrating race or one Red Bull expected to lead to a poor result, Perez said:

“Really we were not expecting it to be that bad. But already on laps today I could find that I couldn’t stop the car the way I wanted to. I couldn’t play with it. I think the hard (tire) wasn’t looking too bad but then the medium was quite tricky. We compromised a little bit of the strategy to try and keep George behind, who was quite a lot faster than us. Yeah, unfortunately, not enough and, yeah, we struggled with balance today.”

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Sergio Perez reckons next few weeks are going to be very important for Red Bull

Sergio Perez believes that the next few weeks are going to be extremely important for Red Bull in terms of car development. He feels that balance is the key area Red Bull needs to work on to counter McLaren and other rivals who have caught up. The 34-year old believes the team has identified the issue and he will be in the factory after Monza helping them figure out solutions to find more performance.

Asked by Sportskeeda what Red Bull needs to improve heading into the next few race weekends, Sergio Perez said:

“I think it's mainly balance. We need to be able to stop the car and be able to carry the speed. The problem is that we are not able to throw the car in. Because there really is nowhere. So it's something we have to work on.”

Asked if the experimentation in terms of the car led to any conclusive answers, Perez said:

“I think the good thing is that we have no questions. Now we know exactly where the issue is. We can clearly see it on the data. It's just how to fix it, how to attack it. And I think in the next few weeks are going to be very important. I'm already tomorrow in the factory with the team, with the engineer, because I think next week it's going to be a very important one.”

Although Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc won the race, McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris finishing second and third didn’t help Red Bull’s cause. In the constructors's championship, McLaren has reduced the margin to the reigning champions down from 42 points to eight points, a gap that could well diminish by the Azerbaijan or Singapore GP. In the drivers' championship, the gap between Norris and Verstappen is down to 62 points. Sergio Perez is currently seventh in the championship having scored a total of 143 points. Red Bull leads the constructors' standings with a total of 434 points.