Sergio Perez has explained that failing to “balance the car for all speeds” was the root cause behind his recent troubles continuing in Formula 1’s Spanish Grand Prix.
Perez’s latest slump in results continued in Barcelona as he trailed home in eighth place to make it less than double-digit points recorded during the past four rounds.
The Mexican managed to progress to Q3 on this occasion, but he qualified behind an Alpine in eighth and six-tenths adrift from Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen.
Despite being laboured with a three-place grid drop from Canada, Perez was able to make up ground on a three-stop strategy to recover to where he should’ve started.
Perez bemoaned struggling to make up ground in the opening stint as excessive degradation on the Soft compound ended up contributing to a “nightmare” encounter.
“Yes, with the penalty we had, where we started, it was so difficult to pass on that first stint and then my race was over,” Perez rued.
“I was stuck behind Nico [Hulkenberg] and I was just sliding around really badly. It was a nightmare of a race. It was very difficult race overall.
“We switched to a three-stop and we managed to come back to [Pierre] Gasly and secure eighth, but it was very hard. Everything was compromised from that first stint.”
Perez attributed his continued woes under single-lap conditions to experiencing balance limitations with his RB20 which stopped him from driving his car on the limit.
“I think I have understood a lot of things that happened over the weekend during the race,” he commented.
“The balance was quite off on the Softs, so linked to the qualifying issues we had. So, we can come back strong.”
Expanding upon his issues, Perez divulged that he is encountering difficulties with having a car underneath him that can be optimised across all corner speed ranges.
“I was quite front-limited. I couldn’t get the rotation and couldn’t get the power down,” he elucidated.
“The problem I have at the moment, is that I can’t balance the car for all the speeds.
“I am struggling quite a bit in the medium to low speed to be able to have the stability I need with the rotation.
“That is something I am working quite hard with the team. We did some aggressive changes for the weekend, which I don’t think worked, so we will review those.”
Perez has concded that making extensive set-up changes in a “desperate” attempt to unlock a breakthrough during practice backfired and contributed to his poor result.
“Our weekend was dirty in terms of, we basically explored, more than testing, probably, the car from FP1 to FP2,” he highlighted.
“We have never swung around so many things on set-up.
“We were a bit desperate to try and find a balance, so we need to review all of that, but I see the light out of the tunnel.”
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