Sergio Perez pipped Lewis Hamilton to second place in the Drivers’ Championship last season following a lengthy battle.
Sergio Perez has warned Lewis Hamilton and his other rivals that he will be a stronger driver in 2024 thanks to the lessons learned from a difficult 2023 campaign. The Red Bull racer failed to win any of the final 18 races of the season despite having dominant machinery underneath him but recovered his form during the final three Grands Prix of the year.
The Mexican kicked off the campaign with two victories in the space of four rounds, before clinching pole position when F1 visited Miami. However, Perez was dominated by Verstappen the next day as his Red Bull team-mate embarked on a 10-race winning streak, firmly staking his claim as the team’s bonafide number one driver.
While Verstappen pulled out an insurmountable lead at the top of the Drivers’ Championship, Perez found himself fending off Lewis Hamilton in the battle for second place. The 33-year-old secured Red Bull’s one-two finish at the penultimate round, but was 290 points behind his team-mate in the standings come the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi.
Despite those setbacks, Perez believes his struggles will stand him in good stead for 2024. “I’m aware of the year I had,” he explained. “I think I’ve learned a lot, and I’m happy with that on how we managed to turn our season around and really come out of it stronger than before and making good use of those bad days.”
Perez was keen to highlight the importance of the Qatar Grand Prix in turning around his season. This was the lowest point for the Red Bull star, who was eliminated in Q1, crashed out of the sprint race following contact with Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon, and then finished in P10 following a track limits penalty in the Grand Prix.
“It was such a hole this year that we really got together after Qatar and we understood a lot of things we were doing with the car,” he said. “So I think that has been really, really good on our side. I mean, it was bad that it happened, but in a way, it was really good because it really strengthened up our team quite a lot.
“Because Qatar was really the worst weekend that I remember in a while in the sport, probably my worst weekend ever in the sport. It was such a bad weekend that I really felt like ‘I cannot be this bad, there’s something else going on’. So we really took the time to understand what was going on with the car quite a lot.”
