A good result today for Red Bull at their home GP in Spielberg. Back-to-back poles for the first time in eight years for the Austrian team, with Vestappen preceding Valtteri Bottas' Mercedes, which will start in fifth position following a penalty.

Quali result #StyrianGP 🇦🇹🏁 Max P1! ⏱, BOT, HAM, NOR, Checo P5 👊, GAS, LEC, TSU, ALO, STR. pic.twitter.com/ECo6j8Cde7

— Red Bull Racing Honda (@redbullracing) June 26, 2021

Fourth place therefore for Checo Perez, who set an impressive time of 1:04.168, after a not very particularly brilliant Friday of free practice.

Quali result #StyrianGP 🇦🇹🏁 Max P1! ⏱, BOT, HAM, NOR, Checo P5 👊, GAS, LEC, TSU, ALO, STR. pic.twitter.com/ECo6j8Cde7

— Red Bull Racing Honda (@redbullracing) June 26, 2021

In FP1 the Mexican was made an error that stopped him in thirteenth position. Things did not get much better in the afternoon, when he brought home a 9th place.

However, history teaches that Perez manages to solve his problems on Saturday, as he did today, and is very consistent during races, and this could be one of the strong points for his Sunday in Austria, on such a small circuit as the Red Bull Ring. It is the first time for Perez on his new team's home circuit and expectations are high for him to set a good result in front of the home crowd.

“At Imola I managed to get the car to the front row in my second race. I didn't expect it already on such a difficult track. But I still have to make progress on Saturday.“

"Whenever there is a small variable, I'm still not completely comfortable with the car," - said Perez at the start of this weekend - "When you know a car like the back of your hand, it is very easy to adapt to those situations. I'm not the only one out there struggling with a new car. I haven't forgotten how to do the job, but unfortunately it takes me longer than I would like. However, I see the light at the end of the tunnel“.

"I'm studying and exploring the car on Fridays," - he said to Motorlat and other selected media - "To see and find the right direction to feel comfortable and to make the best out of it."

"We had to use an extra set [of tyres] that compromsed our qualifying, that made things worse. We were up there, the first lap was pretty good, but then with the other set I lost more than a tenth and a half. A tenth and a half more on my lap time would've definitely been a P2," Perez said about his qualifying.

"It was no Ideal having just one set of tyres for Q3, but it was the price we had to pay for the fact that we were not in a good balance for qualifying." he added.

"There are little things that can make a big difference," - he explained reffering to the issues he had to face during free practice - "and without those, I think qualifying would've been very different today."

"The guys in the factory are trying to develop the car in the best way possible every single weekend, and you can see the results on track," he said when he was asked about the speed that Red Bull is gaining weekend after weekend.