Sergio Perez has put himself under too much pressure to match team mate Max Verstappen and will benefit from falling further behind him in the drivers’ championship, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes.
Verstappen scored his third consecutive win in the Spanish Grand Prix yesterday. Over that period he has increased his lead over Perez at the top of the drivers’ standings from six points to 53.
Perez started the last two races outside the top 10 after errors in qualifying. He recovered from 11th on the grid yesterday to finish fourth, which Horner said was better than Red Bull expected and should give his driver a confidence boost.
“It was a very good recovery, particularly the second half of the race for Checo,” said Horner. “And I think for him, that will give him a lot of confidence. He’s had a difficult Monaco, difficult Saturday here, a stronger Sunday.
“Looking at the gap now between the two drivers, which is pretty significant, in many respects that will take pressure off his shoulders and I think that’ll allow him just to now relax, not put pressure on himself and just re-find the form that he had in those early races.”
Asked whether Perez had pushed himself too hard to match Verstappen, Horner said: “I think so.”
“We know what Checo is capable of, we’ve seen in races like Azerbaijan and Saudi already this year what he’s capable of doing, and I’m sure he’ll re-find that form in the future.”
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Verstappen acknowledged he’s had a “good period” in recent races after Perez took a pair of wins in the opening rounds.
“But we have to keep on working and trying to find more performance. I’m happy in the car and I think the last few race weekends have definitely been a lot more positive for me.
“This is one weekend where I think it went really well but we also know that maybe some other tracks it’s not like this, so there are a lot of races to come where we again have to perform really well to try and win the race.”
Following the strongest performance of the season so far by Mercedes, Verstappen said he’s looking forward to having more competition from outside Red Bull.
“I think it’s great for the sport in general if you have more teams fighting up front. That’s, I think, what they want to achieve so honestly that would be amazing, to have more drivers really up there, and hopefully throughout the year it will already get closer and maybe next year there are more teams really up there.”
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2023 Spanish Grand Prix
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