Perez singles out top priority for 2024 F1 season

Sergio Perez has made it clear that consistency and progress “weekend after weekend’ are his top priorities for the 2024 Formula 1 season.

Perez's 2023 campaign began on a promising note, with two victories in the opening four races putting him just six points behind his Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen in the Drivers' Championship.

However, a disastrous qualifying session in Monaco marked a turning point, as Perez failed to advance to Q3 in the subsequent five races, casting a shadow over his season.

Despite securing a respectable second-place finish in the Drivers' Championship, Perez's performance was overshadowed by Verstappen's dominant run, which yielded 19 wins from 22 races and a staggering 290-point advantage.

The Mexican is in the final year of his contract with Red Bull and is acutely aware that another season of significant underperformance relative to his teammate will seal his fate and even perhaps his career in F1.

• Read also: Verstappen rejects claims Red Bull 'creates cars for him'

Consistency and improvement throughout his campaign, and eradicating any lingering vulnerabilities are Perez’s prime objectives for 2024.

“I want to be able to achieve regularity, to build momentum,” he told French weekly AutoHebdo. “I think what we missed this year is progression.

“We started the year very high, tied with Max, but we were not able to progress throughout the season. We have sometimes even regressed.

“So I think that will be my main priority: to be able to progress throughout the season, whatever my starting point. It is important that, weekend after weekend, we continue to evolve and improve.”

Amid his struggles, Perez hit rock bottom at the 17th round of the F1 world championship in Qatar where he finished a lowly P10 in a race won by Verstappen.

The crushing defeat, which effectively extinguished Perez's championship aspirations, served as a wake-up call.

Undeterred by the mounting pressure and the looming threat of Daniel Ricciardo's potential return to Red Bull, Perez retreated to the team's headquarters, immersing himself in a three-day intensive effort to rectify his spiraling decline.

Alongside his engineers, Perez delved into the depths of data and meticulously examined the intricacies of the car's setup, determined to unravel the root cause of his struggles.

That period marked a turning point for the 34-year-old who ended the year with “a better understanding” of how to exploit his car and how to manage his problems.

“I had a few bad weekends,” he added. “We started the year very strong in the first five or six races, but then we couldn’t progress with the car.

“This is something I missed and want to massively improve.

“The problems we had this year gave me a better understanding of what I was doing with the settings, how I was setting the car up, what direction I should go when I had problems.

“So this is something that will definitely make us stronger next year.”

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