Red Bull’s Sergio Perez believes that the Belgian Grand Prix was an outlier for Ferrari, so they will be back on it in Zandvoort this weekend.
The Scuderia made a solid start to the weekend at Spa, taking a one-two in first practice as Carlos Sainz led Charles Leclerc, but Max Verstappen went fastest in FP2 by eight tenths of a second from the Monegasque.
Perez then led the final practice session ahead of his team-mate, so all looked set for a strong Red Bull performance in qualifying.
Indeed, Verstappen beat Sainz to pole by six tenths on Saturday, but a grid penalty for an excess of engine parts ahead of the weekend sent him down to 14th, with Leclerc starting 15th for the same reason.
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In the race Verstappen carved through the field, making it look easy as he flew past Perez and Sainz to take a commanding victory.
The Mexican finished second to secure Red Bull’s fourth one-two of the year, with Sainz behind in third.
After a litany of issues, including a visor strip getting caught in his brake duct, and a penalty for pit lane speeding at the end, Leclerc was forced to settle for sixth.
The Scuderia were soundly beaten by their title rivals in Spa, but Perez does not anticipate a similar story in the Netherlands.
“I think they will be back strong in Zandvoort,” he told Sky Sports.
“As you know this is a very unique place with a lot of straights around this place, where we are gaining a lot of lap time on them, so Zandvoort will be quite different.”
Having stared 12 positions ahead of his team-mate and finished 18 seconds behind him, Perez accepted that Verstappen was in a league of his own last weekend.
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“I think Max today was on another level, especially that first stint, for me it was quite bad on the medium in terms of deg,” he added.
“Max was a lot faster in that regard.”
Verstappen now leads Perez by 93 points in the Drivers’ Standings, with Red Bull 118 ahead of Ferrari in the teams’ fight.