Perez inspired by Sainz’s famous quote to regain form in qualifying

Sergio Perez finished a good qualifying session in Japan. The Mexican driver finished in second place behind Max Verstappen - what is always the expectation from Red Bull -, and also only missed out on pole position in the end by 0.066 seconds.

"Like Max said, everything was on the margin. It was so easy to lose a tenth or two just by pushing a little bit in some of the corners. The amount of energy that we put into the tyres around here is quite high, so it was quite difficult just to get the perfect lap nailed. It was close today, but I think the whole weekend has been good," Sergio Perez commented on his experience on Saturday in Japan.

He added: "We've made some good progress, and we managed to keep that consistency through the qualifying. Now, let's see what we are able to do tomorrow."

However, Perez is cautious about tomorrow’s Grand Prix. "I don't think we are looking great at the moment in our long-run pace, but we've made some changes, and hopefully, that will translate into a better race pace."

"Stop inventing"

Perez got inspired by Carlos Sainz’s famous words from the 2022 British Grand Prix. "Like Carlos once said, we stopped inventing. We were playing around with the car far too much and just going through it. I think now we have a much better pace. We are a lot happier, and the weekend has just progressed. I think it's a good thing."

"When we came here last year, we were at the stage of our season where nothing was working and when you are in that, you just go around circles and circles, and we found out in the end towards the end of the year that it was better just to step back and don't try to chase it too much with the set-up, because then you start compromising other things," the Mexican driver explained how he was able to regain some confidence

He concluded: "I think that's been the case for this year. I'm a lot more comfortable, and a lot happier, and the confidence is slowly coming back."