Sergio Perez admitted he is concerned over his pace in recent races after losing significant ground to his team mate in the championship.
Max Verstappen scored his fourth consecutive win last weekend while Perez finished outside of the podium places for a third consecutive race. He now lags 69 points behind his team mate at the top of the standings.Last weekend he failed to make the cut for Q3 in a rain-hit qualifying session. He gained six places to finish sixth in the race, but was unable to make an impression on the Ferraris ahead of him and his pace was slower than Verstappen’s.
Perez said his main area of difficulty is “basically on the braking” at the moment. He reported braking trouble in Australia where he suffered a poor final practice session then skidded into a gravel trap soon after qualifying started.
“The ride hasn’t been great,” he explained. “Under braking was the biggest thing and it’s where we think we need to come on top of and make sure that we are able to figure out what’s happening and then come back stronger.”
The team hasn’t yet traced the cause of the problem, according to Perez. “We did something with tyres, something with set-up, a few bits that I need to understand exactly,” he said.
“Certainly we’re going to be working hard together with the team back home to make sure that we figure out what’s happening at the moment.”
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Perez failed to score in Monaco, where he crashed in qualifying, and came fourth in Spain after again failing to make the cut for Q3. However he insisted he won’t be dragged down by his run of poor races.
“I think it’s something that mentally you have to be strong, and I’m strong. I know I will overcome this difficult period of basically two races – because in Monaco, yes I did a mistake and it was a bad weekend, but I think without that we had the pace. But it’s a little bit more concerning not having the pace.”
“I really hope that we are able to get back to our form,” he added.
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2023 Canadian Grand Prix
- Norris ‘even more’ sure Canada penalty was wrong after review request fails
- McLaren seeking more than just downforce gains from major upgrade
- Winning more races won’t necessarily lead to F1 seat – Palou
- Red Bull’s testing restriction will “massively affect” 2024 car development
- Schumacher’s set-up input gives Mercedes a “super advantage” – Wolff
Moi
21st June 2023, 12:05
So now it’s the brakes? Ok.
Robert Henning
21st June 2023, 15:58
Anything except Skill Issue.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
22nd June 2023, 10:48
Stuff a dead bird behind the brake duct before the start of the next race, that’ll fix it.
mega
21st June 2023, 12:12
Something i’ve been noticing with perez,
When something goes right; its ‘I’ & when there are issues its ‘we have to’..
Not always; but its been cropping up more & more.
The dude is still believing he’s a great driver; he’s acceptable; but not on the level of the real greats (Ham, Ver). Falling down from his ego hurts i suppose; he needs to wake up; he’s the nr2; there to pick up the leftovers of the nr. 1 driver. If this is causing issues mentally, that causes him to fumble (again); he’s not going to complete the year i’m afraid.
My 2 cents.
M.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st June 2023, 18:01
Yes, that “I and we” looks pretty bad, I noticed it too.
Todfod (@todfod)
21st June 2023, 12:34
Well.. before being ‘strong’, Perez needs to be less deluded. It was 3 races in a row where’s he’s been performing poorly. No one expects him to match Verstappen.. but to be slower than the Mercedes, Aston Martin and Ferrari is quite unnaceptable for a car with such a huge performance advantage over its rivals.
I think if he falls behind Fernando in the WDC at any point in time, Red Bull will will drop him and someone straight away.
ankita
21st June 2023, 12:55
Well … Before jumping to conclusions, I’d be interested to know what happened after Baku. Up to that race, Perez absolutely matched Verstappen, even in Australia in terms of race pace. Verstappen was visibly frustrated after losing to Perez in Baku and just a week later, in Miami, Verstappen was, for the first time this year, way ahead of Perez in every respect. From there on, Perez underwent these three terrible races.
So, is this all down to Perez’s poor performance? I don’t rule it out. But how the facts unfolded makes me be curious as to why this sudden performance deficit. And I hate conspiracy theories but it is very strange.
David BR (@david-br)
21st June 2023, 13:39
A mixture of some of those circuits matching Perez’s style, especially Baku, and Verstappen not having the car as ‘pointy’ as he likes in the first races. And then Perez has failed to reach q3 in the last three qualifying sessions, catastrophically so at Monaco and for no viable reason. In most cases he then has to pass better racers with the likes of Alonso, Hamilton and Leclerc ahead. I mean, the likes of Ocon, Gasly and Sainz are probably better too.
MacLeod (@macleod)
21st June 2023, 13:41
His understanding with the tyres is the problem as the tyre working area temps is rather small (Even max is complaining about that) as the new suspension is great but doesn’t generate a lot of heat in the tyres. As you notices the track where it was cool OR wet Perez failed the most. His late breaking is the big problem as that doesn’t generate heat enough to keep the tyres in that window. (several persons already told him that he need to change the way to generate heat but it’s so different for Perez todo that)
Baku was one that Max discovered he was lied too about the problem. But Max needed to understand the problem and how to put heat in the front tyres and that why Max went faster then Perez.
David BR (@david-br)
21st June 2023, 14:48
@macleod Sorry, see reply below…
Robert Henning
21st June 2023, 15:49
Let’s do race by race.
Bahrain – Verstappen was faster in qualifying, and in the race and had plenty of margin.
Jeddah – Perez was slower than Verstappen in the qualifying before the latter’s car failed, and slower by a tenth a lap in the race when they both pushed for around 12 to 13 laps.
Australia – Perez brakes later than everybody in Q1, locks up, and runs off into the barriers. Brakes later than polesetter Verstappen. Race pace cannot be compared and is a moot exercise, given that one was managing the pace and the other was struggling to overtake Norris.
Baku – Perez is marginally faster than Verstappen. This is his best track and 2022 was a rather anomalous race for Perez, given that in 2021 he was just as fast as Max and would have overcut him if not for his bad pitstop.
Miami – Perez gets a pole, thanks to Leclerc’s crash and Verstappen’s mistake. But as the long hard stint showed, Verstappen was faster once the track had high speed corners and no more 90 degree corners.
This race was the mental breakdown point for Perez, more than anything else. Perez declared pre race that he shouldn’t be seeing Max behind him in a race without a SC/Red Flag. But guess what, Miami had 0 flags, and Perez was just broken mentally.
Come Monaco, he wanted to show he is as fast as Max and binned it in Q1 and had possibly the worst race I have seen from him, getting lapped twice.
Spain – Weird qualifying conditions and lack of confidence.
Canada – He binned it last year, at least he didn’t bit it this year in the qualifying.
There’s actually no conspiracy to be had here except for his teammate being a great driver and being more adaptable.
F1 drivers don’t find pace magically and change their driving style out of the blue.
You have what you have, and Perez’s point deficit to Verstappen skrinking is more an outcome of his car becoming better leading to him finishing in better positions more than anything else.
Add to all this, RB haven’t even done a serious upgrade of their car so far, which rules out another conspiracy variable. The sidepod tweak and floor edge tweaks are very minor and the sidepod tweak was already present during preseason testing and they were using the RB18 sidepods for a while till they reached their life cycle.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st June 2023, 18:05
If you’re as slow as perez has been this year in canada quali, it’s the same as binning it: you don’t make q3.
Todfod (@todfod)
21st June 2023, 16:59
I feel there’s really no need to look beyond the trends we’ve seen in recent seasons. I don’t think there’s any conspiracy at all.
Perez in general, starts the season well. Maybe he gets to grips with a car quicker during pre-season, but then he doesn’t really adapt to car changes or doesn’t improve his driving to constantly evolve and get more out of the car. Verstappen keeps getting better as the season progresses. You might argue that the development of the car is focused around Verstappen’s style, but the hard truth is that the engineers constantly look at making the car faster, and its up to the driver to adapt and get the most out of it. Perez seems to fail constantly in that regard.
I’m pretty sure that Max and Red bull had nothing to do with Perez stuffing it in the wall in Australia and Monaco. Pretty sure they had no hand in him having poor race pace either.
Robert Henning
21st June 2023, 15:57
The car advantage is not much as you are insinuating. RB have not brought any serious upgrades like AM/Merc and are still running the same car more or less.
The pace advantage they have is around 2 to 3 tenths on race pace (with Max as the driver) to the second best team, and it is therefore not surprising to see Perez fall back given his deficit to Verstappen.
The highest pace delta they had was 7 to 8 tenths at Jeddah which was 5 tenths at Baku. This information is reliable given that both RB drivers went full beans in both these races, not to mention that the other teams were managing, exaggerating the gap.
With Verstappen they still have a “dominant” car, in that as long as he doesn’t make any serious error, he wins, just like the second half of last year.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
21st June 2023, 17:24
I have to wonder how much Verstappen’s illness in the early season played a part in Verstappen perhaps underperforming compared to his normal pace rather than it was Perez overperforming to be on pace with Max at some times.
Either way, Max’s massive points lead currently can’t be put on the car or mysterious braking issues. I could imagine an excuse like that if it were a gap of a couple tenths. Even if Perez were to overcome an issue, he’d still be well behind Max.
Qeki (@qeki)
21st June 2023, 20:15
@todfod It’s never black and white. It’s combination of all the things: Max and team finding more speed / Checo losing speed / other drivers improving / Good luck / Bad luck. I doubt teams sabotage other cars. The other side doesn’t tell if they found more speed. Or as in older days Senna getting better engine than Prost. I bet sometimes someone has sabotaged cars but its more or less about the other team getting something more right than the other one.
Qeki (@qeki)
21st June 2023, 20:16
It’s not about downgrading the other car it’s more about upgrading the other.
Todfod (@todfod)
22nd June 2023, 7:14
@qeki
If there were upgrades on Max’s car, that were not on Sergio’s, he would be announcing that from the mountain tops. Sergio never let’s an excuse go by unnoticed. Max might have better people in the team working with him, but is that responsible for him putting the car in the wall? I don’t think so.
David BR (@david-br)
21st June 2023, 14:48
@macleod Good points, a complicating factor may also be that Perez has actually tried to ‘mimic’ Max’s smoother style in some recent qualifying sessions, while Max has actually adapted his own style to put more heat in the tyres. Ultimately the Red Bull is always going to be developed to suit Max, though, which raises the question of why they’d put a driver with a completely different driving style in the second car. Maybe it made sense in earlier seasons when Perez’s famous tyre conservation could see him improve later in races. But it doesn’t seem to apply now.
MacLeod (@macleod)
22nd June 2023, 7:46
@david-br – found it :) You are right ofcourse it’s a bit the same as last year it seems Max and Perez are great in managing their tyres each in there own way. But the change this year in the suspension took both drivers by surprise as both complained about tyre temperatures a lot (in cooler weather) but Max is the one found a way to get more temp in the tyres which make him looking much faster in the fastes car.
SteveP
22nd June 2023, 7:47
Because Daniel was in the McLaren?
The tyre issue comes up all over – every team – perhaps a different tyre manufacturer that knows how to make tyres that don’t have a silly narrow performance window would help spread the results. If teams are trying to hit a narrow performance window it turns the fine tuning of the suspension/ride height settings into a bit of a lottery unless the specific engineer(s) have a golden touch.
One thing is certain, a look at the lap times graph above shows Perez consistently slower, no improvement relative to Verstappen toward the end of a stint. So, that legendary tyre conservation talent Perez had is either matched now by Verstappen, or the car simply doesn’t behave the same way any more.
cdfemke (@cdfemke)
21st June 2023, 15:12
He is still ovwr driving himself, still trying to match or better Verstappen. He should take a step back by driving neatly again and build it up from there.
“The race” on youtube has a great analysis video on perez’ recent performance
Joe Pineapples
21st June 2023, 16:31
Mexican Bottas.
macaque (@macaque)
22nd June 2023, 4:30
Perez dos punto cero!
Esteban
22nd June 2023, 4:37
We wish (well, not me because I’m not a jingoist F1 newcomer, and I don’t like that Pérez is there because Carlos Slim has big pockets). Just look at Bottas’ qualifying record, behind only Senna and Prost.
Todfod (@todfod)
22nd June 2023, 13:15
At least Bottas had the pace to match Hamilton in a lot of qualifying sessions and racedays. Perez has probably done this once… in Baku this year.
Todfod (@todfod)
22nd June 2023, 13:15
Twice .. Jeddah 2023 as well
Electroball76
22nd June 2023, 9:53
If all else was equal, there are about 5 drivers on the grid that could fight for the WDC. Perez is part of the other group. It doesn’t make him a bad driver, he is still massively talented.