Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes Sergio Perez needs to “go back to basics”, with the Austrians “desperately” needing the Mexican to rediscover some performance.
Last weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix was yet another miserable one for Perez, who could only salvage P10 at the Lusail International Circuit.
Perez struggled throughout the weekend in Qatar, with him having been eliminated in Q2.
Things got no better for the Red Bull driver in the sprint race, after he was forced to retire after crashing at Turn 2.
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In his defence, the crash wasn’t his fault, as Esteban Ocon veered across the front of the Mexican after not being able to see where he was.
Perez’s car was the most wounded from the collision, forcing him to start from the pit-lane.
Not for the first time this season though, he failed to extract the RB19’s potential, with most having expected him to finish much higher than 10th.
He also failed to keep his car within the white lines, after receiving two track limit penalties.
As a result of scoring just one-point in Qatar, Perez now has just a 30-point lead over Lewis Hamilton in the fight for second in the Drivers’ Championship, a position Red Bull are desperate for him to achieve.
Horner admitted that Perez’s performance last weekend was “frustrating”, with him now being in need of as much support as possible.
“I think we really need to sit down with Checo because we know what he’s capable of and he’s not hitting that form at the moment,” said Horner.
“We desperately need him to find that form to keep this second place in the championship.
“So, it was frustrating that he’s only come out of the weekend with one point and I think he could have, even starting from the back of the grid, there was an opportunity to score heavily today or decently.
“But we’ll support him as much as we can because there’s the triple-header coming up [United States, Mexico, Brazil]. There’s a huge amount of points with sprint races as well.”
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To rediscover his pace, Horner wonders if Checo needs to “go back to basics”, something he did to great success at the Italian Grand Prix where he finished second.
“I think you just need to sometimes sort of take your foot off, put it on the floor, stop the merry-go-round and just go back to basics. And that’s what we’ll do,” Horner said.
“We all know what Checo is capable of and we want to support him to get back into a position where even as near ago as Monza, he was finishing in second place to Max.”