Sergio Perez has shed light on the significant challenges he has faced in adapting to the 2023 Red Bull Formula 1 car. Despite winning two of the first four races, Perez has fallen a substantial 230 points behind his Red Bull teammate, Max Verstappen, who has secured 15 victories this season. Perez’s struggles have been compounded by his inability to reach Q3 in qualifying on eight occasions, leaving him with a considerable deficit to overcome on race day.
After a disappointing performance in Qatar, Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner indicated that the team would need to have a serious discussion with Perez to help him regain his form. Expanding on that weekend, Perez admitted that he had encountered significant challenges in finding the right car setup, which has been a recurring issue preventing him from reversing his decline.
Perez explained, “Basically it was crucial for us to understand where it went wrong. When you head into fast-paced weekends, like the Sprint event in Qatar, if you don’t have a good setup, you can easily lose your way, and that’s what happened to us. We got really lost in Qatar. But this is the nature of the sport; you have good weekends and bad weekends, and we haven’t been able to maintain consistency throughout the year.”
Before the United States Grand Prix, where Perez claimed to have made progress, he had only accumulated five points in the previous three race weekends. The significant gap to Verstappen in Japan and Qatar was attributed by Perez to focusing on the wrong setup direction within the Red Bull team.
He also reiterated his earlier acknowledgment that the 2023 Red Bull car’s development had drifted away from his preferred driving style. Perez stated, “I think there is some development in it, and there is also some tuning that we’ve been doing that means it doesn’t feel as natural as before. I think it’s mainly the corner entry, the grip that I need, that needs to be adjusted a bit differently.”
Although Perez’s inconsistent performance has put his second place in the standings at risk, Horner has stated that his seat is not contingent on his final position. Horner remains focused on helping Perez regain his form and ensuring that such a gap in performance does not persist. Perez acknowledged the challenge, stating, “That’s the target, to get back to that level of comfort with the car. My issues have been real, and we’ve been struggling with the car a bit, and hopefully, next year can be a different story, but also these next five races.”
