Sergio Perez Has No Other Way But To Lift Himself Up Now

Sergio Perez hasn’t recently crashed out of any F1 Grand Prix. And it’s good on him, even if that means that spinning at a tricky corner and thus losing car control has seen him contribute to a session being red flagged.

Take Hungary’s Q1 crash as an example.

However, he has appeared to be a driver who seems to have lost his mojo for dominating an F1 contest.

The big wins haven’t happened. In fact, not one race win has happened for him this year, at least, up to this point. Remember, there are just 10 more events left before yet another FIA Formula 1 World Championship seasons draws to an end.

However, in the most recent races, including the Spa-Francorchamps-bound Belgian Grand Prix and the Hungaroring-bound Hungarian GP, Sergio Perez discovered a slight positive, if one could put it like that.

And it was that he wasn’t relegated to the bottom of the pecking order. It wasn’t that he failed to finish outside the top ten, which being a driver of a Red Bull car would have been rather absurd (even as the car, as one discovered, been anything but a rocketship by usual Milton Keynes standards).

As a matter of fact, Sergio Perez scored P7 on both occasions.

But having said that, what seems to concern the Mexican, ever the reliable team player, is that not only has he failed to feature in the top five on more occasions this year than he would have liked, he has also failed to capitalise on a car that before being edged out by McLaren, had been rampant.

Does that expose some weaknesses in Checo’s armour?

Having said that, Sergio Perez’s biggest concern alone isn’t the underwhelming performances as seen in fourteen Grands Prix.

For sure, they can happen to the best in the sport. Kimi Raikkonen failed to collect a podium in all of 2014 in what was a dubious season for the Finn with the Maranello-based outfit.

But what also doesn’t help the experienced former Racing Point driver is that each time he underperforms in a Grand Prix, his teammate, Max Verstappen, seems to emerge the clear winner. How? Because the pressure of not being able to match the Dutchman only exacerbates the Mexican’s woes.

Does it not?

Yet, one feels a bit sad for Perez given the enormity of the pressure he’s up against in the form of Verstappen.

Just how far down the grid he has fallen at the moment can be understood by the fact that he is currently seventh on the Drivers’ Standings.

That is when at one stage, earlier in the season, he was inside the top three after competing in the first three races of the season.

Sergio Perez’s most recent Formula 1 Grand Prix result culminated in a P7. This must seem like a breather, a welcoming change of sorts even given he has registered two DNF’s this season and not to mention, a strange P17 at Great Britain.

One notes, what the talented driver, an excellent support system to teammate Max, ought to do is to start acing the qualifying sessions.

To make it to Q3 and with a sense of fire and consistency is what is the need of the hour- is it not?

Sergio Perez forged his reputation as a tough cookie. Some have called him a fighter. Others identify him as a king of the streets. But why do things happen to him the way they happen on the Asphalt as so often seen this year?

With the season about to return to its full swing and that race at Baku just around the corner, the man with guts to achieve glory in the streets would want to stand up once again.

What do you reckon? In fact, is there any other way for the mild-mannered and well-meaning 34-year-old?