Although he finished the 2023 season as runner-up in the F1 championship, Perez had a campaign to forget in many regards, 290 points off team-mate Max Verstappen and bereft of any victories in the last 18 rounds after missing out on Q3 no fewer than nine times.
Matters were not helped by him feeling less and less comfortable with the RB19 as the season progressed.
"We had some issues as the car was developing," the Mexican explained.
"And the way we were trying to improve those issues meant that we were just taking performance out of the car, and not necessarily going faster. Making it more comfortable is not necessarily faster."
"Qatar, Japan, was the lowest point of the season, where we understood a lot of things."
Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
Efforts made on the simulator before the United States Grand Prix unlocked a better approach for Perez, and he thinks that understanding will carry through to better help him cope with what’s needed for Red Bull’s 2024 challenger.
"With the learning of last year, it's very important that we learn what went wrong, learn from our mistakes," he said.
"I think we understood a lot of things. It's my fourth year with Red Bull, and I do expect to be at my best for this year.
"[We worked] on understanding the difficult races, why they were so difficult, the directions we were taking with the car, how we were overcompensating things and not necessarily making the car better. I think all of that we managed to learn."
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