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Sergio Perez has had a no good, very bad 2023 Formula 1 season.
After beginning the season strongly, Perez now finds himself over 200 points behind teammate Max Verstappen. He has not finished on the podium in the last four races.
But it wasn’t always that way.
In fact, through four races in 2023, Perez had two victories and trailed Verstappen by just six points.
Then the Miami Grand Prix happened.
Perez qualified on pole for the race. While Verstappen started just ninth due to a poorly timed red flag in the qualifying. But rather than Perez coming out victorious, it was Verstappen who knifed through the field for a run away victory, while Perez was left wondering what could have been in second place.
Verstappen went on to win 12 of the next 13 races. Perez has not won a race since and has just four podium finishes in that time frame.
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“And I think there was a decisive moment this year, which was probably in Miami, where Checo had, if you like, an open goal. He’d won two races in Azerbaijan and Saudi, and you could see his confidence was high,” Horner said of the change of fate.
“I think that Max, winning that race, having been caught out by a red flag in qualy – starting down in ninth, and whatever lap it was that he took the lead, within a very short period of time – I think mentally that was that was quite a brutal one for Checo to deal with.
Verstappen clinched his third-consecutive drivers championship two weeks ago in Qatar. While Perez is clinging to second place in the standings ahead of seven-time series champion Lewis Hamilton.
Perez leads Hamilton by 39 points with four races remaining. But Hamilton has outscored Perex 37-21 over the last four races.
That includes a disqualification for Hamilton after second-place finish this past weekend in Austin.