Sergio Perez goes against tide: “I’m close to a breakthrough. The pace is there; I’m making good progress”. Sergio Perez expressed confidence that he can return to strong performances in F1.

Sergio Perez somewhat satisfied with the Las Vegas GP
Eliminated in Q1, Sergio Perez started from 15th on the grid at the Las Vegas GP due to Franco Colapinto’s penalty. His tenth-place finish at the checkered flag leaves mixed emotions for the Mexican driver: on the one hand, there’s the comeback from the back of the field, highlighted by some excellent overtakes—such as the double move on Liam Lawson and Kevin Magnussen under braking into Turn 14. On the other hand, there’s the disappointment of yet another poor result in a season to forget. While Max Verstappen celebrates his fourth consecutive F1 drivers’ title, Checo scores just a single point and finds himself under increasing scrutiny.

Red Bull out of the title fight
The numbers are clear: with a 251-point gap to his teammate, the Mexican is one of the main reasons why Red Bull is now (not mathematically, but almost) out of the constructors’ championship fight. Despite speculation about his future—Marko has mentioned a post-Abu Dhabi meeting where his fate within the Red Bull family will essentially be decided— Sergio Perez remained optimistic after the Las Vegas GP. Even though he hasn’t finished higher than sixth (at Zandvoort) since Imola, the Mexican believes he can turn things around.

Checo Perez speaks
“After qualifying,” said Checo in an interview with F1’s official channels after the checkered flag, “we understood what happened. It went the way it did, but from where I see things now, I think we’re close to a breakthrough. The pace is there; it’s coming. I believe we’re making good progress. We’ve understood exactly the nature of the issues in qualifying. We should have done a better job, but we didn’t. So, we’ll work hard as a team to get back in shape for the final two GPs.”

“In the race,” he continued, discussing strategy, “I think we were a bit caught off guard by the high level of tire degradation. We didn’t expect something like that, and it penalized us a lot, unfortunately. So we used the best tire (the Hard, which Perez started the race on) at the worst possible time, and then I had to do a very long stint on the Mediums, which were quite vulnerable.”