Red Bull have rejected Sergio Perez’s proposal to get their 2023 F1 title challenge back on track by returning to the pre-Spanish Grand Prix version of the RB19 car, it has been claimed .
Pérez has had his best start to the F1 season in 2023, winning two of the opening four races in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, but his Red Bull seat is under serious threat due to the explosion mid-season drama.
The Mexican driver went five consecutive rounds without appearing in Q3 between Monaco and Great Britain, but appeared to have steadied the ship by claiming four podiums in six races either side of the summer break .
Sergio Perez has asked Red Bull to return to pre-Spain specification
However, the fact that Perez won 5 points after the last 3 races in Singapore, Japan and Qatar has made his position in the team for next season increasingly closely monitored even though he has a contract until the end of the 2024 season. .
While Pérez claims that Red Bull’s development has moved away from him and towards teammate Max Verstappen, who won his third consecutive world championship title in Qatar, there are comments believes that this player’s 33-year-long effort to reduce the gap with the Dutchman has been rejected. team. While Perez has put in his best performance at the start of the season, a report from German publication Auto Motor und Sport claims that he has approached the team to request a return to the RB19 first. Barcelona in mid-season struggles, but Red Bull denied it. on the basis that no team brings two different cars to the Grands Prix.
Red Bull introduced a new platform at June’s Spanish GP, the seventh round of the season and, importantly, the second of Perez’s five-race streak without an appearance in Q3.
While Verstappen responded well to the upgrade – taking his third win in a record run of 10 consecutive wins – Perez found the car no longer suited his driving style with repeated problems his in 2021/22, although on paper the new floor is already in place. The RB19 is overall a faster car than it was at the start of the season.
The report added that Pérez fell into a “vicious cycle” in the weeks after Barcelona, trying to regain his early-season form by making the car easier to drive through structural changes. image, but returns it to its original form and rotates more slowly.
Pérez felt his mid-season slump was over after finishing second to Verstappen at Monza last month, but developments in the last three races suggest his confidence was misplaced. According to the report, the situation Perez faced was compared by Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko to Pierre Gasly’s struggles alongside Verstappen in the first half of 2019.
Promoted from the Red Bull Toro Rosso youth team in 2019, Gasly endured 12 bruising races as Verstappen’s team-mate and became increasingly haunted by tweaks to the suspension setup in his bid to desperate attempt to improve his performance.
The Frenchman was suddenly dropped by the team after Red Bull lost patience mid-season to make way for Alex Albon, who was demoted to a reserve role 18 months after Perez was brought in as Verstappen’s teammate. .
Despite suggestions that Pérez could lose his seat as early as 2024, Red Bull believes that Pérez is “still the good driver” they appointed almost three years ago, with his mental state considered an issue. His main topic at present.
Red Bull have “simply told Perez to clear his head” in order to achieve the team’s ambition of having their drivers finish first and second in the Drivers’ standings for the first time in the team’s history, with the Mexican’s future set to hinge on his ability to see off Lewis Hamilton in the fight for P2.
Perez is said to be aware “that he will face a problem” in terms of retaining his seat if he is unable to hold on to second place in the Championship.
In August, Perez opened up about his struggles with Red Bull’s development direction, telling Sky F1: “For a driver, it’s really difficult to be adapting to the car instead of just things coming naturally.
“The last few races, I’ve been a step or two behind and always thinking consciously how I have to drive the car, sometimes with how the car has been developed doesn’t really suit me as much so I have to work harder for it.
“You’ve won two races in the first four and then all of a sudden you feel: ‘Argh, this weekend [it] doesn’t feel like it did before.’
So you’re losing confidence because you are not fully confident with the car, and in F1 if you’re not fully confident with the car up to 250kph into a corner then you are doubting a little bit more.”
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