The Mexican finished runner-up behind race winner Max Verstappen in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, but the 22.4 second gap to the front shows how much more progress he needs to make.
While the team is confident that Perez is more at one with this year’s F1 challenger than last season’s RB19, he acknowledges there is still plenty of room for improvement.
“I think at the moment the car it's not super comfortable for me, but I understand a lot more of the car,” he said, when asked how his feelings compared to the RB19.
“I think as a team we understand a lot more on how to maximise the performance out of the car. So, I think that's something quite good for us.”
Perez believes the gap in Bahrain was exaggerated by a small deficit in qualifying shuffling him into the pack, where it was then hard to make a recovery in the race.
“I think it was overall a good race, but in qualifying it wasn't a perfect lap,” he said. “I didn't put it together.
“I should have been on the front row, or third – and we are talking about a tenth or so. So, I think just tidying things up also in the race, as we didn't have the right configuration with our set-up. We were not great at looking after the tyre.”
Source: Autosport