Perez acknowledges: 'We may have taken a wrong direction somewhere in 2022'

Perez currently has a contract that runs through to the end of 2024, so he is well placed for the next two years. What the 33-year-old Mexican's future looks like after that and whether he will get to see the collaboration with Ford up close is a matter of wait and see.

Perez hopes to be part of Ford collaboration

"It is such a long time away, that I'm not really thinking about it. If you ask me if I want to be in the sport for much longer than 2024, but it's a lot of time and many years. I just want to wait and see but it's very exciting and I'd love to be part of it," the Red Bull driver explained to GPblog among others.

In the 2022 F1 season, Perez made a strong start, but gradually began to struggle with the updates his team introduced for the RB18. Meanwhile, the Mexican hopes to have put those struggles behind him. "I have done a lot of work with the engineers over the winter to make sure we understood those races. We took some directions with the set-up that were perhaps the wrong ones. I think towards the end of the year we understood them," he explained.

Meanwhile, Perez has not given up on his title ambitions and he hopes to make things difficult for Max Verstappen in 2023. When asked if the increasing number of street races will work in his favour, as he usually performs strongly there, he replied in the negative. "No, not really. If I want to win the championship, I have to be strong at every circuit throughout the season so that's the main target," Perez said.