The Portuguese GP saw Sergio Perez's best finish so far with his new team. The Mexican came in 4th place, after closing the first two races of the season in Bahrain and Imola respectively in 5th and 11th position.

“Now that I am driving the car in more or less free air throughout the race, I’ve seen the way I have to adapt, the way I have to look after the tyres, that’s all positive," he said.

In Portimão he gave yet another display of his brilliant tyre management skills, driving for 52 laps on medium tyres.

But does he already feel at home in his Redbull?

“Not yet. I am still far away from that. So, it’s just a process I guess and hopefully, very soon I can be at home with the race, with the team, and very much feel with it.”

In Portugal Perez was 4th on the grid, but “everything started (go to wrong) off the line,” he explained. 

“On my side, there wasn’t a lot of grip. I went straight into wheel spin so I lost a position to Carlos [Sainz]."

"Then I recovered the position after that at the restart but then I lost it to Lando [Norris] down into turn five."

“I looked in my mirrors and I thought Lando was totally off the track limits so I didn’t fight the position enough, thinking that he was going to give me back the place, but I probably misjudged that one." 

And that is what slowed him down, creating a gap that kept him far away from the top three, shutting down any possible battle to step onto the podium. 

“It took me a couple of laps to get past Lando, and that created the gap to the leaders that I was basically out of the race by then.”