Sergio Perez had mixed emotions after today’s Australian Grand Prix as although he was happy to secure his first podium of the season; he was disappointed to see teammate Max Verstappen suffer his second retirement of the season costing Red Bull their first double podium of 2022.

Perez’s first podium finish of the season didn’t come easy for him, as he squandered his good start by being squeezed out in Turn 1, meaning that Mercedes Lewis Hamilton, who had made a good launch from fifth on the grid, managed to move up to third by the end of Lap 1.

By Lap 10, Perez was on Hamilton’s gearbox, and he duly went around the outside of the seven-time World champion to move back up into the podium positions before stopping for fresh rubber on Lap 20 and rejoining in ninth.

However, he remained behind Hamilton after his stop and had to wait until Lap 23 to get past the Brit before the safety car came out on Lap 24 to pick up debris left behind by Sebastian Vettel’s race-ending shunt.

At the restart, Perez initially failed to clear Fernando Alonso’s Alpine as the Spaniard tried to cling onto fourth place before his tyres gave up the ghost giving him an easy pass. Then, with Alonso gone, Perez set off in hot pursuit of George Russell, who had yet to stop for new tyres, and on Lap 37, he was forced to yield the position to Perez.

Third became second two laps later as Verstappen suffered a technical failure, and with both Mercedes cars struggling to keep up, Perez cruised home to second and salvaged some valuable points for Red Bull.

“It was a good result, but, unfortunately, we lost Max, and it would have been great to have a double podium for the team. On the other hand, it is a good result after so many unlucky moments in the first couple of races for me. It was a very complicated race with the start I had and the safety cars, but we managed to overcome it. My first start was very poor; we struggled a lot with (the) degradation on the medium tyre, we were a bit unlucky with the safety car, and we lost two positions which we recovered later.”

“We got a few things wrong across the weekend, and we were battling more with Mercedes than Ferrari, so the pace wasn’t where we want it to be, but we will work on it.”

Going into the two-week break between Melbourne and Imola, Red Bull lies third in the constructors’ championship, ten points behind Mercedes and a whopping 49 points behind Ferrari, who took their second win of the season in Melbourne with Charles Leclerc romping home to take his fourth Formula 1 career win.

Perez believes that Red Bull at present can’t match Ferrari, but he says the team will feel a little more confident if the car improves a little when the series heads back to Europe.

“We got a few things wrong across the weekend, and we were battling more with Mercedes than Ferrari, so the pace wasn’t where we want it to be, but we will work on it. There is some good analysis to be done from this weekend because yesterday we were close for pole, but in the race, we were a bit too far off the pace. The fastest guys out there are Ferrari; we want to be up there fighting with them, and today, that wasn’t the case. If we can improve the car a little, then we can be more confident.”