Red Bull still does not "fully understand" its performance slump in Singapore, Sergio Perez has admitted as questions linger over how the car will fare in the Japanese Grand Prix. The Milton Keynes-based squad's hopes of winning every race in 2023 were dashed at the 15th time of asking in Singapore last time out, with the RB19 struggling for set-up and grip throughout practice. Both Max Verstappen and Perez were knocked out in Q2, with fifth and eighth place finishes respectively. Boss Christian Horner insisted the slump was simply down to set-up issues and had nothing to do with the recent FIA clampdown on flexi-wings in TD018 - although RacingNews365's technical analyst Paolo Filisetti is not so sure about that claim. Red Bull can wrap up the 2023 Constructors' title this weekend, but Perez says the reasons behind the drop in performance at Marina Bay remain a mystery.
A reason for Red Bull?
"It is definitely the target [to bounce back]," Perez told media including RacingNews365 ahead of the Suzuka race. "We still don't understand fully what went wrong so wrong in Singapore. We have some ideas, but certainly, this track is very different [to Singapore], so there should not be a reason why not to be strong. "Suzuka should be one of the best circuits for us. "We obviously have some ideas on how we prepared for the weekend and the information we had and got wrong, but obviously it is something that we will keep internal. "There are some indications that we probably approached the weekend with the wrong set-up."
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