Sergio Perez has claimed that Red Bull solving the current issues with its Formula 1 car could even provide a bigger “benefit” to him than team-mate Max Verstappen.
Red Bull has experienced a tough run over recent months as the dominance that it sustained earlier in the campaign has dissipated as the entire pack has converged.
The Austrian squad’s gradual demise relative to the competition has witnessed Perez embark upon a slump which has seen him accumulate 36 points in nine rounds.
However, Max Verstappen has since also admitted that the RB20’s balance has become harder to contend with since updates began being implemented onto the car.
Red Bull has been forced to acknowledge that McLaren has surpassed it in the pecking order amid Lando Norris’ dominant 22-second win at Zandvoort last weekend.
But having completed experiments with split specifications between the two cars, Perez is optimistic that Red Bull has discovered the root cause behind its setbacks.
“The biggest thing for us is that we understand now the issues with the car,” Perez said. “We understand them.
“It’s just a question of how quickly and what solutions we have to fix them. But we exactly know where we are with the car.
“We know what is the issue. And hopefully in the coming weekends, even already for this one, we are able to make a lot of progress.”
With Verstappen still continuing to land podiums to preserve his substantial championship lead, Perez believes Red Bull addressing its problems could help him more.
“I think the solution is the same for both cars because Max can probably cope with the problem a little bit better with his style than I can,” he explained.
“But ultimately, once we are able to solve it, it’s going to benefit a lot both for drivers. It might benefit me even more on my side.
“I think the correlation issue, we’ve had it for a while and it’s there within a lot of teams. I wouldn’t think that that’s the main problem.
“The main problem is that we probably took a wrong direction somewhere that we have to understand it.
“From there on, just try and bring the performance to the car in the right path, in the right way to make those big jumps.”
However, Verstappen is less optimistic about Red Bull’s tests in Zandvoort a week ago as he reiterated that improving the balance is integral to rediscovering its form.
“We had a bit of an idea because of the cars, but, I mean, it’s not like Checo’s car was suddenly very fast [in Zandvoort], right?” he highlighted.
“So, we need to find more performance and better balance because we were still complaining about the same balance issues.”
Asked how much has been down to set-up, Verstappen answered: “I think it’s mainly the car and that’s why you’re limited with setup, you know, to try and prevent it.”
Verstappen has been victorious on F1’s previous two visits to Monza, but the Dutchman has contended that will have little bearing with several changes to the circuit.
“You can’t really go off previous years because the tarmac is different,” he stated. “Some corners are a bit different also with the kerbs and just the layout of the corner.
“So, I guess time will tell. So, yeah, we’ll see with the downforce levels and stuff that you need now. So, all the references, I would say, are a bit gone around here.”
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