Perez's troubled year
In the first half of the 2023 championship, Sergio Perez he achieved two victories on two city circuits such as Jeddah and Baku, and then came close to a hat-trick in Miami. However, in Florida, the Mexican was unable to contain the furious comeback of Max Verstappenstarting since then a slow decline in terms of results which he also pushed 'Checo' to make various mistakes on the track. Despite obtaining the title of vice-champion at the end of the year, the #11 remained in Red Bull has been questioned several times, but in 2024 he will regularly take to the track once again as Verstappen's teammate.
A more encouraging start
A complex year therefore for the 33 year old from Guadalajara, both in terms of sporting results and emotionally. An aspect that his former strategist at the time of Force India also noticed, Bernadette 'Bernie' Collins: “I believe that his reputation has suffered a serious blow – explained the Irishman on the podcast Beyond the Grid – I think he was very strong at the beginning of the year, and I was surprised at how competitive he was against Max.”
The best drivers
Recalling the period spent in the team with Perez, Collins underlined Checo's strengths, also highlighting those of another former driver with whom he had the opportunity to work during his career: “He was very easy to work with if qualifying went badlybecause he would immediately recover and be fine for the race – he added – it's not Max, who is much stronger, but probably Max is not the strategist that Sebastian Vettel was. I would say Sebastian is probably the best driver I've worked with, but Checo in that team, with the pit wall group we had, is not much different today, and he did a lot of good things with that car.”
The personality in Force India
Qualities, those of Perez, which hardly emerged in the last season, thanks to the inferior results compared to those obtained by Verstappen and the mistakes made during the championship which generated rumors about his possible farewell from Red Bull: “It was great at the time – continued Collins, revisiting his experience in Force India – if we had a bad qualifying, very often Checo was already there to say 'Well, what will we do in the race?'. I always thought that especially his family had a strong emotional resilience at that stage. Of course, it's very different when you're the driver who is scoring the most points. It's a very different situation from that of Red Bull.”
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