“I think it was, in terms of weekend progression, it has been a solid one,” he said afterwards. “But I was very disappointed with the pace we had today in the race, it was something we were not expecting to have.
“I thought we were going to be a lot closer to the McLaren. Ferrari were a massive surprise and obviously McLaren. Yeah, plenty of stuff to understand… It was discouraging to see what McLaren can do today.”
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Perez did manage to get ahead of George Russell’s Mercedes, somewhat helped by his rival opting for a late change to a two-stop strategy. But he then lost out to the recovering Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, with Red Bull quite possibly only the third fastest car in Zandvoort.
“In the beginning things were looking really good, but we just didn’t have the pace to keep up, as the other cars started to pull ahead,” Perez added. “We were struggling with the grip on the hard tyre and balance all race.
“We have a lot of work to do, but it has been a good weekend in terms of understanding the car issues and we can go forward to take this as the base and to develop from here.
