“At the moment, I’m feeling very comfortable with the car.”
When Sergio Pérez spoke those words he was sitting just one point off the 2023 Formula 1 standings lead. He’d just won in Jeddah, his first victory of what was a fresh season. Two races later, leaving Azerbaijan, he was still only six points adrift and had matched Max Verstappen at 2-2 in the grand prix victory stakes.
Come the campaign’s conclusion, Pérez occupied the same spot in the standings. But the gap to his victorious team-mate was a Formula 1 record 290 points. Perez didn’t win again after Baku, while Verstappen racked up 17 more victories on his way to another record-setting season total. Perhaps more damningly, Max’s solo points haul would have been enough for Red Bull to beat Mercedes to second in the constructors’ championship.
The differences keep coming simply because they were so many and so massive. But what really went wrong for Pérez in 2023 – and can he avoid these pitfalls in the season about to start?
Well, for Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, Perez’s once-promising 2023 challenge took its most significant hit right after Baku: in Miami. On F1’s second visit to the Florida city,
