Perez: "Our long runs looked promising today"

It was not the best qualifying for Sergio Perez. He only finished ninth, but thanks to the slipstream he gave to Max Verstappen, the Dutchman finished in P3.

In Red Bull Racing 's official press release, Perez says of his qualifying. “We definitely struggled in qualifying today. Tomorrow our aim in the sprint race is to try to gain some positions and come through the field strong, I think this will be difficult with the DRS train though."

"Our long runs looked promising today and a lot of things can happen during a race so we’ll see what happens, I’m looking forward to it. We will try to optimise our performance for a strong race on Sunday", said the Mexican driver.

Hopefully Perez can gain some spots tomorrow during the second sprint race of the season. The gap in the Constructors' Championship is still narrow between Red Bull and Mercedes, so the points scored by Verstappen's teammate are more important than ever.