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Sergio Pérez has struggled in recent weeks, but his Red Bull boss thinks that could be a good thing
After the first few races of the 2023 Formula 1 season, it seemed that fans were in store for a proper title fight at the top of the Drivers’ standings. While Max Verstappen was out to a lead in the standings as many expected, his Red Bull teammate Sergio Pérez was nipping at his heels. Thanks to a strong start to the season from Perez — which saw the driver finish second in both Bahrain and Miami, and score wins in Saudi Arabia as well as Azerbaijan — Pérez entered the sixth Grand Prix of the season, the Monaco Grand Prix, just 14 points behind Verstappen.
Things look a lot different now.
There were expectations that Pérez would cut further into that lead in Monaco, if not grab it outright, given his prowess on street tracks. With the moniker “King of the Streets” in his pocket, and having won in Monaco a season ago, there was a window for Pérez to make a huge statement in Monte Carlo.
Instead, he failed to advance out of Q1 on Saturday, and was forced to start at the back of the field, eventually limping home on Sunday in P16.
Then in Barcelona, Pérez again struggled in qualifying, failing to advance to Q3. He started 11th on the grid, and while he worked his way up to a fourth-place finish, he saw Verstappen secure yet another win. More worrisome perhaps? The fact that George Russell started behind him in P12, yet finished on the podium in third.
That marked the first time a driver had started behind a Red Bull this season, and finished ahead of them on the track.
Now the gap between Verstappen and Pérez has ballooned to 53 points, and instead of looking ahead, Pérez might need to look in the rearview mirror. When he left Miami the Red Bull driver was 30 points clear of Fernando Alonso.
Right now Alonso is just 18 points behind him for second.
The recent performance has shined a harsh light on Pérez, with some going as far to question his job security. On a recent episode of the Chequered Flag podcast on the BBC, former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley questioned not just Perez’s recent form, but whether he would make it to the end of the season with Red Bull.
“With Pérez, I don’t know if he’s lost confidence over recent weeks – there was talk of a championship fight just literally two races ago,” said Priestley. “Now people are even questioning his right to be in that car. Can he even make it to the end of the season? So I think there’s a solid psychological impact with what’s going on with Sergio Pérez, on his side of the garage.”
While his effort in finishing fourth in Barcelona was notable, Priestley still viewed it as a disappointment. “It was a good recovery in one sense in that he made it to fourth, but he’s in a car that, anything off the podium, it’s got to be disappointing.”
However, the man Pérez has to impress most, Team Principal Christian Horner, has found a surprising silver lining in his driver’s recent struggles.
“I think if you look at the points now, there’s a big split between the two of them… I think if anything, that should take pressure off him,” said Horner in an interview with Sky Sports. “He has nothing to lose now, and I think he just needs to relax, he can breathe out, and just drive like we know he’s capable of, like he did in Azerbaijan and some of the early races this year.”
For his part, Pêrez acknowledges the recent missteps, and is looking to come back stronger in next week’s Canadian Grand Prix. Speaking after the Monaco Grand Prix, Pérez admitted to his mistake in qualifying, and called it “unacceptable.”
“We paid the price from my mistake [in qualifying]. That has been very costly and I just have to apologize to the whole team because it is unacceptable to have this kind of mistake,” said the Red Bull driver. “I have to move on, learn from it. I cannot afford another zero [points] in the championship.”
Following his fourth-place finish in Spain, Pérez had this to say. “It is what it is. I think if we wanted to finish higher, we needed a much better qualifying, so I’m looking forward to Montreal now,” said Pérez. “I think especially after this one we’ve got to analyze, make sure that we understand what happened and make sure that we come [back] strong.”
Horner found some silver linings in his performance as well.
“He was hunting that podium down at the end of the race there,” said Horner. “He lost out a little bit of ground on the first lap, but then his recovery through the race was very, very strong. He just qualified out of position and I think had he qualified in position, he would have been there today. I think he can take positives out of his recovery today.”
Those positives, in Horner’s view, are something for Pérez to build upon.
Even if he faces a difficult situation in driving alongside his teammate.
“Being Max Verstappen’s team mate… Take nothing away, there’s not a driver out there today, I believe, that would have beaten Max in that car today,” Horner told Sky Sports. “He’s up against a driver that is at the top of his form, and that’s very tough.
“Checo, mentally, it’s a really tough thing to deal with. But as I say, I think now, there is that separation in the points, that may actually take the pressure off him a little, and the expectation he’s putting on himself, he needs to let go of that now and just be free to drive.”
Whether he returns to form in next week’s Canadian Grand Prix, however, is a different question. Pérez has yet to finish in the points in Montreal since joining Red Bull — he retired on Lap 8 a season ago with a gearbox failure — and his last finish in the points in the Canadian Grand Prix came back in 2017, when he was driving for Force India.
Still, maybe that freedom to drive will propel him to a much better result next weekend.
