“Scary to see what McLaren can do” in Dutch GP

Sergio Perez admitted he was concerned by the formidable pace McLaren showed in the Dutch Grand Prix.

Lando Norris beat Perez’s team mate Max Verstappen to victory by 22 seconds. Perez finished fourth, almost 40 seconds behind the race winner.

“I think in terms of weekend progression it has been a solid one,” Perez told the official F1 channel. “But I’m just very disappointed with the pace we had today in the race.

“It’s something we were not expecting to have. I thought we were going to be a lot closer to the McLaren. Ferrari was a massive surprise and obviously McLaren. So plenty of stuff to understand.”

Perez revealed Red Bull ran different set-ups between their two cars in a bid to understand why the RB20 is not performing as they believe it should. He said that provided some useful data, but is concerned by how far ahead their rivals were.

“I think it has been a positive weekend for the team because we ran different specs between Max and myself so a lot of data gathering for this weekend and hopefully very soon we can put everything together in the right package.

“Monza will be a very different track again. But it was scary to see what McLaren can do today.”

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Sixth place is Perez’s best finishing position in a grand prix since he finished fourth in Miami. He said the information Red Bull gathered about their car should help them improve their performance in the coming races.

“I think that’s positive, we found a nicer solution within the car,” he said. “And I think understanding the issue has helped because we know how to work it out. So that’s positive.

“Now, the main thing is to really improve the car and then get back our race pace.”