Perez: I want to get my season back on track

Sergio Perez hopes third place in qualifying is the start of a new dawn for the Red Bull driver as he looks to get his season back on track.

The performance marked his best qualifying result since the Miami Grand Prix, where he started on pole.

It was also only his second Q3 appearance since that race.

“I’ve certainly had a rough patch with the car and with my driving style,” Perez conceded.

“I’ve been working on it. It’s no different to any other driver out there; I think drivers, we go through these periods where we are just finding our sweet spot. It has happened to anyone.

“But it’s a long season,” he added.

“Like I always say, people only remember where you finish in Abu Dhabi.

“So, for me, it’s still a very long season ahead.

“I want to get my season back on track, but I know, and I’ve done it before, so I think we’re heading in the right direction.”

Pressure on Perez has ramped up since Daniel Ricciardo returned to the grid in place of Nyck de Vries and Scuderia AlphaTauri.

The Australian has made no secret of his desire to return to the senior Red Bull team. That would mean displacing Perez.

Third in qualifying in Belgium is an important step back in the right direction.

It’s a performance delivered in tricky conditions; starting wet but soon saw the first slick-tyre running of the weekend.

“In these conditions, it’s so easy for it to go wrong,” Perez said.

“We already saw in Q1, if you’re on the wrong side of it with the tyres too warm on the final lap or so on, it can be very, very tight.

“Even in Q2, I had the wrong engine deployment because of consecutive laps and that just puts you really, really close to the limit.

“So it’s just one of those sessions that it’s so tricky to find the limit, and you have to go with the track.”

While he qualified third, Perez will line up on the front row alongside pole-sitter Charles Leclerc after his Red Bull team-mate, Max Verstappen, takes a five-place grid penalty.

Another qualifying session welcomes drivers back on track on Saturday, with the F1 Shootout determining the starting order for the F1 Sprint later in the day.