Perez on Australia troubles: 'They stay in the back of your mind'

Sergio Perez has admitted that his troubles in Australia "stay in the back of your mind" as Formula 1 prepares for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix sprint weekend.

The Mexican suffered a horror Saturday in Melbourne four weeks ago as he struggled with the car in practice after a problem, before sliding off at Turn 3 and not posting a time in qualifying.

He would recover to fifth in the race, with fastest lap - helped by the late Lap 57 chaos - but lost 14 points to teammate and title rival Max Verstappen who won the race to hold a 15 point advantage going into round four in Baku.

And Red Bull driver Perez says it is important to "reset" and forget the weekend, which was just his second ever top five in Australia.

Red Bull understand problems

"It obviously stays in the back of your mind, but you have to reset yourself and move on from that," Perez explained to media including RacingNews365 about the troubled Melbourne weekend.

"There were many specific issues that we had, it was a horrible day on Saturday in FP3 and Qualifying was really bad, but I think we understood a lot of the problems that we had.

"It was not just a single problem to get rid off, it was a combination of a few things to have this problem, so hopefully, we don't get to see that again. You don't want to see it, especially here in Baku."

After the bad day at Albert Park, mixed messages came out of Red Bull, with Perez's story seemingly different to those of Christian Horner and Helmut Marko.

Perez - who won in Baku in 2021 for Red Bull - dismissed concerns about the truth being muddled.

"We are very transparent within the team, and there was feedback that I had and I think sometimes everyone has different versions [of what happened]," he said.

"We have always been transparent and that's the main version and the main thing that happened on Saturday."