Perez’s “objective” is to secure pole position and victory in Jeddah
Very comfortable in the qualifying sessions last year, to the point of securing pole position, the first of his career, Sergio Perez is confident and states his goal of repeating this performance with a victory in the end.
This has been confirmed over time, the Mexican seems to have a preference for urban circuits and be comfortable when it comes to brushing against walls at high speed.
When asked if Red Bull has a reason to claim that the team won’t be as dominant here as it was last time, Perez answers in the affirmative:
« Yes, I think it’s a very different circuit,” says the 33-year-old driver. « The requirements are very different, the degradation is not as significant as in Bahrain. We are convinced that Ferrari will be very strong here, so certainly Aston and Mercedes will be much closer to us because the requirements are very different here. »
He continues by stating that in his opinion, some teams probably did not optimize their cars or their strategy with the tires as much as they could have.
Perez’s Revenge?
In 2022, Perez succeeded in securing the pole position at the end of the qualifications, but the victory, and even the podium, slipped away from him the next day due to a safety car being deployed at the worst possible moment in his race strategy.
Can the Red Bull driver hope for victory this weekend? “Yes, definitely, that will be my goal, to try to be in pole position and try to win the race,” he says in a press conference.
« I think it’s important. It’s only the second race weekend, so the margins are very narrow. In Bahrain, we were all very close to each other. So, yes, I’m looking forward to it.
Perez might have a card to play to achieve a big result, especially since Verstappen has not yet secured the pole position on this track, although he came very close to doing so in 2021 before his accident in the last corner.
However, if the Mexican wants to achieve victory, he will have to start by getting off to a better start than the one he had two weeks ago in order to reach his goal.
