Sergio Perez, Red Bull, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, 2022

Canada retirement “very costly in championship fight” Perez

2022 Canadian Grand Prix

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Sergio Perez says his retirement in the Canadian Grand Prix “hurts a lot” as it has cost him in the championship fight.

The Red Bull driver went into the race 21 points behind his championship-leading team mate Max Verstappen. That gap has more than doubled to 46 after Perez dropped out nine laps into today’s race.

“A zero when you’re fighting for the championship is very costly,” said Perez. “But it’s still a very long championship and today hurts a lot so I want to forget about today.”

Having crashed in Q2 and started 13th, Perez said he was making good progress when his car broke down. “We were coming through, saving the tyres and the brakes especially. So we had plenty of potential for my race to come back.”

He does not believe the Q2 crash was related to the failure he experienced today. “That’s not what we think at the moment,” he said. However the failure marks the fourth retirement for a Red Bull this year.

“We have a new set of regulations and everyone is pushing extremely hard with everything,” said Perez. “You’re going through new rules so it should be something related to that. The car is bouncing more, so it’s different problems you’re facing.”

Perez said that losing points in the fight with Ferrari was painful and that monitoring the risk of failures had to be improved. “We need to keep on top of these things, the gearbox was at the end of its life.

“We just have to keep on top of these things because reliability it’s very painful. And having a zero for the championship, it’s also very painful.”

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Author information

Hazel Southwell
Hazel is a motorsport and automotive journalist with a particular interest in hybrid systems, electrification, batteries and new fuel technologies....
Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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9 comments on “Canada retirement “very costly in championship fight” Perez”

  1. This championship is over.

    1. @spafrancorchamps
      Effectively, yes, now that the gaps to both Perez & Leclerc are nearing the two-race maximum score, so almost a two DNF scope advantage.

    2. Not if Max sees a few of the same issues again @spafrancorchamps. I guess they will plan his extra engines (penalties) in places like Silverstone where there will be opportunity to catch up after starting from the back, but a few dropouts from races will get Leclerc back in the fight.

      Both of them will probably be taking some of those engine grid penalties before the season ends, since they are already well into their stock of assigned parts.

  2. Championship fight? What fight? Hahaha, a single race victory does a fight not make. Cool down Sergio already, ’cause this is getting silly.

  3. Yes, although he hasn’t really been a proper contender at any point in the season thus far.

  4. He was nowhere today before his DNF. Really disappointing weekend after his two stellar weekends. Hope he can find that form again.

  5. Max can veat sebs record of largest points lead this season.

    1. @f1fan-2000 I don’t think he will. In 2013 Seb went on a hot streak which I don’t see Max repeating. Remember, the Ferrari is still a very fast car that is up there with RBR, so especially Leclerc will definitely take a few wins from Max this year. I doubt Max will get anywhere near a 100 points lead.

      That being said, while it is a stat and therefore is what it is, I think the points system changes cover past performances a bit too much. See, Seb had a lead of 6.2 race win equivalents (155 points), while Schumacher in 2002 collected an advantage of 6.7 race wins worth of points.

      But probably even more telling would be to use relative stats, as the racers of the first 5 decades of F1 never had a chance to collect such a huge lead as there were less races. See the 1992 and 1997 championships where Mansell and Villeneuve both scored 93% points more than their closest competitors, for example.

      Or what to think of Jim Clark’s 1963? He literally scored the maximum number of points available that season. And repeated it again in 1965!

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