Sergio Perez once again found himself in a familiar position after qualifying for the Grand Prix, a situation that became a routine occurrence in 2023. This posed a strategic challenge for the Mexican driver and the Red Bull team during the Bahrain race last weekend.
Unlike his teammate Max Verstappen, who started from pole position and comfortably pulled ahead, Perez had to fight his way through the field, overtaking George Russell and the two Ferraris after starting in fifth place.
Friday’s qualifying session in Bahrain revealed that the field was closely matched in terms of one-lap pace. Therefore, Perez’s fifth-place starting position, just over a tenth of a second away from starting alongside Verstappen on the front row, was not as disastrous as his numerous Q2 exits in 2023.
However, Perez mentioned after the race that battling through the field in the early stages of the race put more strain on his tires, which required the team to consider their strategy.
“Starting from P5, it’s always satisfying to make good progress,” Perez commented on his second-place finish in Bahrain. “There were many on-track battles, which completely changes the strategy. You experience more sliding when you’re in traffic. Overall, it’s a great result for the team. We had close fights with the Ferraris and the early battles with the Mercedes. The DRS activation was different, which affected a few things out there.”
Both Red Bull cars started and finished the race on the soft tires, with a middle stint on the hard compound. This differed from most other teams who opted for a soft, hard, hard tire strategy. The choice was mainly influenced by the remaining allocation of Pirelli tires available to them.
For Verstappen, this strategy was straightforward and he was able to focus solely on his own race without being bothered by the battles happening behind him.
On the other hand, Perez had to defend his position against a charging Carlos Sainz after moving into second place. This forced him to make an early pit stop for his final stint on the soft tires.
Although Perez acknowledged that “it worked really well to save a new set of soft tires,” and that Red Bull performed better on this compound compared to the hard tires on the high-degradation Bahrain circuit, he also mentioned that the final stint was challenging but manageable. He finished a few seconds ahead of Sainz in third place.
“I knew that it was all about managing,” Perez explained. “[Sainz] pushed us to stop early, and it was going to be a very long stint, so we managed to gradually build a gap and maintain a consistent distance. I think it worked well.”