After two successful first days, the Red Bull crew screwed on some new parts on Saturday morning, including a revised floor and new sidepods, with a streamlined cut in the middle. In addition, the clever minds had managed to get the weight down a little more.
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It resulted for Pérez, who drove relatively few laps, in a time of 1.33.105. The Mexican was 0.854 ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou. Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri) set the third fastest time, ahead of Carlos Sainz (Ferrari). They both conceded about 1.8 seconds to Pérez.
Ninth place Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton was stuck in ninth place, with a time of 1.36.217. However, the Mercedes driver, who says he is not yet satisfied with his new car, collected a lot of data with his 78 laps. Which will come in handy towards the start of the season next week.
“It’s difficult at the moment,” Hamilton said on Friday. “I’m not very happy at the moment, but we’re trying to tame the car. I have a lot of faith in the team and the people factory, but it’s not going to be easy. What if we raced now? From what I’ve seen so far, I think Ferrari would probably take a one-two punch. Or maybe Red Bull.”
From so-called sand bagging is no question, Hamilton is troublesome. ,,No, just look at all our difficult moments on the track. Then we would be very good hide-and-seek. We are having a hard time, but maybe we can take some steps towards next week.”