Pérez believes he hit rock bottom during the Qatar Grand Prix
The Red Bull driver spoke candidly about his difficulties in Qatar and the impact that the Lusail race had on him. Sergio Pérez discussed his end-of-season struggles in Formula 1, describing how he hit rock bottom during the Qatar Grand Prix.
The race in Lusail was difficult for Pérez, as he finished in 10th place, over 80 seconds behind his teammate, Max Verstappen, unable to control the RB19 and regularly exceeding track limits. The race took place during a challenging period between Japan and Mexico, during which Pérez only scored 16 points compared to Verstappen’s 117 in the same period, with rumors circulating about his future if he failed to secure P2 among the drivers.
He finally rallied to finish second after an intensive debriefing with the team before the United States Grand Prix, and spoke about the impact of the alarming decline in his performance. « Qatar has truly been the worst weekend I remember in a long time, probably my worst weekend in this sport », Pérez recounts. « It was such a bad weekend that I really thought to myself: ‘I can’t be that bad, something is happening’ ».
« Obviously, we had a deficit in the settings of the car we were playing with weekend after weekend, and we simply weren’t able to make progress. But once we managed to overcome that, we understood a lot of things we were trying to compensate for, and it simply meant that we weren’t doing things right.
« It was unfortunate that it happened, but in a way, it was actually good because it really strengthened our team a lot ».
