He’s expecting to take further steps in front of his home crowd in Mexico City this weekend.
Perez and his engineers dug deep in the sim running as they tried to get him back to the sort of pace he showed earlier in the season after a run of frustrating weekends.
The sprint race format at COTA made it hard to fully judge the results, as like all drivers Perez was committed to his set-up after FP1.
He moved forward in both races, rising from seventh on the sprint grid to fifth at the flag, and going from ninth to fifth in Sunday’s grand prix, before being handed an extra place by Lewis Hamilton’s exclusion.
"I think we've shown at times really good pace,” he said when asked by Autosport about his race.
“I think just my pace on the hard tyre was not good enough to make more progress. So something that we've got to look at. We know we compromise quite a bit of our balance for the weekend, given that it was only one practice.
“And this is what happens on the sprint events, you either go wrong direction or right direction, but I do expect to be a lot better."
Regarding the benefits of the sim running, he said: "Yes, I think we made some very good progress. Especially considering how much we compromised the car.
Source: Autosport