A downbeat Sergio Perez reflects on 2024: 'Nothing has worked this year'
Sergio Perez is hoping to finish the 2024 season on a high after struggling in his RB20 for the majority of the year. At the last Grand Prix in Qatar, the Mexican was almost eight-tenths slower than Max Verstappen in qualifying and retired from the race. After the race in the paddock, the Red Bull Racing driver admitted that it has been a very tough Formula 1 season for him.
Perez has not achieved a podium since the Chinese Grand Prix in April and sits down in eighth place on 152 points in the driver's championship. Perez is the only driver from the top four teams not to win a race this season. The other seven have won multiple Grand Prix, whilst Perez can only boast four podium finishes. Like Verstappen, who sowed up a fourth consecutive world title in Las Vegas, Perez has had to deal with a car that was not as dominant as it was in 2023. In the past five F1 races, Perez has scored just seven points.
Perez: 'Nothing worked after the first few races'
Speaking in the paddock after the Qatar Grand Prix, Perez said: "Yeah, I mean, nothing has worked really, apart from the first couple of races. It's been quite a tricky year, so yeah, it just doesn't get any better. So, hopefully, we can have a nice final race because we learned quite a lot from the car this weekend.
"We learned a lot from that sprint event, which was great to see, and I think from that point on, there's a lot of things that we will analyse and understand from our car. Still, it's a penultimate race, and we keep learning from it, so I really hope we can put it all together in the final race," added the Mexican.
Perez hopes to finish well in Abu Dhabi: 'We just need to put it together'
This weekend's race in Abu Dhabi will be the final Grand Prix of the season. The 24th and final race is set to be exiting at the Yas Marina circuit, with McLaren and Ferrari battling for constructors title glory. Perez hopes - despite having a tough year - to finish well. "It would be good to finish it off. There have been some signs of some flashes of pace. We just have to put it all together. This weekend was really, really tricky by not being able to connect enough to the balance. But we learned a lot with the sprint, with the direction that Max took. So I really hope that for the final race, we can get everything back." The Mexican concluded.
This article was written in collaboration with Jeroen Immink
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For me it looks like just before the summer break when it became clear that Redbull would lose constructors Checo has been sacrificed. Redbull wanted to replace him during summer break but FIA meddled and asked them to do it after Mexico.
Also replacing Checo in the middle of the season would have been bad for their business in Mexico. So they might be purposefully giving him bad setups after the summer break and will replace him after Abu Dhabi based on below par performance. This way their business in Mexico won't be affected. Also sacrificing Checo has given them more wind tunnel time for next year.
A bit cynical but you could be onto something there Divergent
Just a thought, but maybe some peoples ageing process sets in earlier and some people fall off a cliff later.
Drivers like Alonso doesnt seem to have fallen off too much at 43 years old.
We are perhaps seeing Hamilton hit that cliff this year at 39 years old as this year is by far the largest gap to Russell in both qualifying and race pace.
Maybe Perez, coming up to 35 by next month has just hit that cliff a bit earlier and that is maybe why his performance from about May onwards have been terrible.
'Perez said: "Yeah, I mean, nothing has worked really,'
Bang on the money Checo, including the driver ??
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