Helmut Marko gave some insight as to where Sergio Perez is falling short of Max Verstappen's pace in Bahrain as the Mexican has so far been unable to match the pace set by his teammate. While Verstappen went quickest overall on Friday, Perez had a low-key start to his Red Bull career as he finished in 10th place and 0.7 seconds away from the front. "He's losing all the time in the first sector," Marko explained to RacingNews365.com and others. "He already had that in the test [pre-season testing] and, in the end, he brought it all together." Marko was otherwise pleased with Perez, whose long run pace was comparable to Verstappen's and Hamilton's at the very front "On the long run, he was more or less on the same level as Verstappen," Marko added. Perez was largely happy with his first day's work with Red Bull at a race weekend, but acknowledged that he's falling short on the qualifying simulation. "I’m pleased so far with how things are going," Perez said. "I’m settling in well and taking some steps forwards. "If I were to summarise today, I’ve got some work to do on the short runs as over one lap I don’t quite feel the car is within me just yet and I still have to think about what the car is doing, but in the long runs I’m more comfortable and I think the pace is there so that’s positive. "I think we have some work to do on the soft tyre as there is also room for improvement there, but the car is performing well, we have good pace and tomorrow it will be pretty close in qualifying so we need to make sure we get it right and have a good start to the season.”
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