Sergio Perez’s poor form continued on Sunday at the Canadian Grand Prix, as the Mexican could only salvage a disappointing sixth place at the Circuit de Gilles-Villeneuve.
It was a third consecutive Grand Prix to forget for the Red Bull driver, who once again failed to make Q3 on Saturday.
The Mexican was eliminated in Q2 and started Sunday’s race from P12, directly behind both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
Concerningly, Perez was unable to challenge either Ferrari driver, with his pace having been very worrying.
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He worked his way into sixth but was unable to make any further progress, cementing his second finish outside the top-five in the last three races.
Since finishing second in Miami, everything is seemingly going wrong for Perez, who’s now 69 points behind team-mate Max Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship.
His title chances are hanging by the smallest of threads, with the likelihood being that he’ll be completely out of the championship fight if he struggles next weekend at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Having finished P16, P4, and P6 in the last three races, he’s now at risk of dropping to third in the standings.
Fernando Alonso sits just nine points behind the Mexican ahead of Red Bull’s home race, which looks set to be a massively important one for Checo.
He openly admitted that his lack of pace on Sunday was a “surprise”, with Perez having revealed that he “couldn’t recover the grip” he had prior to the race’s only Safety Car on Lap 13.
Despite his ongoing downward spiral, he isn’t “concerned” about where he is in the championship, mostly due to his biggest worry being why his form has dropped so dramatically.
“Today was a bit of a surprise,” Perez said after finishing P6.
“We just didn’t have the pace. It was looking good on the hard tyre initially but once the safety car came in I couldn’t recover the grip on that tyre and we didn’t have the pace on the medium.
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“It is important we take time to understand the weekend because this race, in particular, has been poor in pace and we need to get on top of it.
“I have the confidence in myself and know what I can do but today we were not good. Right now, I am more concerned about my drop in performance than my place in the championship because the pace is just not there.
“You never have no pressure on you, it has been a difficult period but I am here to perform and I need to do that in the next few races.”