Perez Named 'Turn Of The Season' By Red Bull Team Principal

Thursday, 04 January 2024 at 16:00

In a recent interview, Christian Horner discussed Sergio Perez's comeback towards the end of the 2023 season.

The 2023 season was surely one of the most difficult ones in Sergio Perez's career. Championship standings show he finished in second place which is a great result for almost every driver.

However, the standings also reveal an immense point gap between him and his teammate Max Verstappen, who beat him in 20 out of 22 Grand Prix races of the season.

The Mexican driver mentioned he had to take a break after the failed Qatar Grand Prix weekend to reset himself mentally. His team principal, Christian Horner, believes it was an essential step towards improvement. He told racefans.net:

"I think that was very important for him. Because we know what he’s capable of and we weren’t seeing the best Sergio."

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Perez could match the triple World champion's pace during the first few races of the season. The 33-year-old won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix races.

"What we saw at the beginning of the year – if you think back to Azerbaijan and Saudi and Bahrain and the early-season races – he was phenomenal. Even in Monza, he drove a great race."

But as his team principal identified in different interview, something went wrong during the Miami Grand Prix, where Perez started quite a few positions ahead of the Dutchman but still finished behind him.

"But then that first batch of flyaways all started to fall apart for him. And a lot less of a driver would have crumbled under that pressure and expectation."

Perez overall struggled with qualifying sessions, which meant he almost always found himself in a very tough position at the start of the race, as he had to overtake a lot to get to the front of the pack.

The number 11 driver faced enormous pressure from the media as many started suggesting Red Bull might end the contract with him earlier and were already looking for alternative drivers for the 2024 season.

"But he brushed himself down, he worked hard. He came and embedded himself in the simulator with his engineers. And I think the turn of the season, he really picked up and drove some great races."