Sergio Perez said that this weekend’s qualifying success had taken a lot of hard work, both from himself and from the Red Bull team.<\/p>\n
Perez has struggled to match Max Verstappen’s straight line speed since moving to the team at the start of the year, although he’s more made up for it with some impressive race performances including victory in Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n
Qualifying in third place at the Red Bull Ring is his best Saturday performance for the team since the Emilia Romagna GP at Imola in April.<\/p>\n
Moreover, he was determined to make it through to the final round of qualifying on the medium tyres preferred for the start of tomorrow’s race rather than ‘playing safe’ by progressing on the faster but less durable soft tyres.<\/p>\n
He was able to do that, and then went on to secure third place on the grid behind Verstappen and Lando Norris, after his best lap in Q3 clocked in only 0.270s off Verstappen’s pole performance.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m happy, it\u2019s a very good result for the team here at our home track in Austria,” he said afterwards. <\/p>\n
“Max and I are in a good starting position and hopefully we can get a good start off the line tomorrow, that will be critical.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“In the end we got a good lap today and it didn\u2019t come easy,” he admitted. “It was very hard work, harder than you might think.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been chasing a lot the balance, just exploring the cars in all areas and just chipping away every single run<\/p>\n
“But, yeah, in the end we got a good lap and a good start position for tomorrow,” he said. “I believe that tomorrow we’ve got a better race car than in qualifying.”<\/p>\n