Sergio Perez is feeling confident ahead of what is currently the final year on his Red Bull contract.
Sergio Perez is expecting to be at his very “best” in the upcoming 2024 F1 season, in what will be his fourth and potentially final campaign as a Red Bull driver.
Perez joined Red Bull in 2021 and has claimed five wins for the Milton Keynes-based side, although he’s been consistently slower than three-time World Champion Max Verstappen.
The Mexican driver came under significant fire last season following a poor run of form mid-season, having initially started 2023 exceptionally well. He won two of the opening four races and was viewed as Verstappen’s only title rival, before a crash in Q1 at the Monaco Grand Prix started a shocking couple of months for him.
Red Bull faced several calls to drop the 34-year-old ahead of this year, in what is the final season on his current contract. Despite the Austrians 2023 car having been sublime, Perez failed to extract its maximum potential on enough occasions.
Perez was responsible for just two of Red Bull’s 21 wins last season, whilst he finished 290 points behind Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship. Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner defended Perez on several occasions and stressed that the reigning Champions would respect his contract, despite the calls for reserve driver Liam Lawson or RB’s Daniel Ricciardo to replace him.
Of course, with Perez not having a deal for 2025, he’ll need to prove himself to Red Bull if he wants to receive an extension. His big hope is to make the most of every Grand Prix and improve as the campaign develops.
‘Understanding’ previous struggles
“I feel fully fresh,” Perez told select media including RacingNews365. “And obviously, with the learning of last year, it’s very important that we will learn what went wrong and learn from our mistakes. I think we understood a lot of things.
“And I think it’s my fourth year with Red Bull and I do expect to be at my best for this year.
Perez went onto discuss his 2024 target: “To maximise every single opportunity to get a really strong base early on, and just be able to carry that through the whole season and be able to develop through the season.”
To ensure that he’s as prepared as possible for 2024, Perez has spent the winter break looking back at his past struggles to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself.
“Understanding the difficult races, why they were so difficult,” Perez revealed. “The directions we were taking with the car, how we were overcompensating things and not necessarily making the car better. I think all of that we managed to learn a lot.”
