F1 news: Sergio Perez reveals Red Bull decline in honest admission

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Perez reveals Red Bull decline in honest admission

The Mexican has a huge year ahead of him

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Tuesday 23 January 2024 09:12

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Red Bull driver Sergio Perez has said that he feels as though he 'regressed' throughout the course of 2023, as the Mexican attempts to tie down a new contract with the world champions.

Perez was only able to claim two race victories last season in what has been described by team principal Christian Horner as being the 'most successful car in F1 history'.

His supreme team-mate Max Verstappen, on the other hand, took 19 wins throughout the season on his way to a third consecutive drivers' world championship title.

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Now 33 years old, Perez's contract with Red Bull runs out at the end of 2024, and the Mexican will need to prove that he can get closer to the performance of Verstappen, or risk being cast aside.

Sergio Perez managed to beat his team-mate to two of the first four race victories in 2023

Max Verstappen claimed 19 race wins in 2023, including 10 in a row

Max Verstappen has now won three world championships, with all of them coming with Sergio Perez as his team-mate

Perez's contract situation

Perez has now admitted that he needs to consistently perform at the highest level, if he is to get anywhere close to Verstappen's dominant levels from 2023.

The Mexican did manage to challenge Verstappen in the early part of 2023, claiming two of the first four race wins of the season, but that challenge soon fell away after Verstappen revealed he'd had enough of being beaten by his team-mate.

“I want to be able to achieve regularity, to build momentum," Perez said in quotes reported by AutoHebdo.

"I think what we missed this year is progression. We started the year very high, tied with Max, but we were not able to progress throughout the season. We have sometimes even regressed.

"So I think that will be my main priority: to be able to progress throughout the season, whatever my starting point. It is important that, weekend after weekend, we continue to evolve and improve.

“I had a few bad weekends," he continued.

"We started the year very strong in the first five or six races, but then we couldn't progress with the car. This is something I missed this year and want to massively improve next year.

"The problems we had this year gave me a better understanding of what I was doing with the settings, how I was setting the car up, what direction I should go when I had problems. So this is something that will definitely make us stronger next year."