Sergio Perez makes Ferrari pace admission after finishing P2 in Australia

Sergio Perez has revealed that he felt the Red Bull car just was not up to the pace of the Ferrari over the course of the Australian Grand Prix weekend.

The Mexican driver saw his Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen having to retire before the end of the Grand Prix and, naturally after what happened in Bahrain, he would have been concerned about suffering a similar fate.

Instead, though, he managed to bring his car home in P2 to secure a podium, though it was Charles Leclerc’s day in the Ferrari as he cruised home to open up a 34-point gap at the top of the Drivers’ standings.

And, speaking post-race, Perez revealed that the feeling within the team was that Ferrari just had them covered all ends up this weekend:

“Ferrari was super-strong today, we couldn’t match them at any point. It’s the first weekend that they are a step ahead.

“[Previously] I think we’ve been really close in qualifying, the race. Even yesterday I felt we were a little bit closer than we showed. But I think today they were on another level.

“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.

“Sector 3 was really weak for us. We had to do a lot of compromises for that which really affected us throughout the circuit.

“It shows that that corner in particular, we are very sensitive and it’s very easy to get it wrong.

“We also were a bit too poor with our balance. We took a bit of a wrong direction with the car, so I think there is analysis to be done.

“We ran the two cars a bit different so also there’s analysis to do [comparing them]. I am sure we will learn a lot from this weekend because we seem to be a bit harder on tyres than Ferrari.

“We