If you’ve been following the 2023 Formula 1 season, you would’ve witnessed one of the biggest turnarounds in F1 history and undoubtedly the biggest turnaround of the season. McLaren went from struggling at the back of the grid to fighting at (almost) the front, right behind Red Bull. But a turnaround that’s almost as big as McLaren’s happened at Red Bull, and not in a positive way. Sergio Perez went from fighting for the championship in the first few races to barely holding on to P2 right now. Needless to say, the past few months have been brutal for the Mexican, and Helmut Marko has just made it worse.

After winning two of the first four races in 2023, Perez looked on par with Max Verstappen. But ever since the Miami GP eight races ago, things have gone downhill for Perez. Verstappen has won every race starting from Miami and has gone into a different, far superior gear compared to his teammate, which brought up the question—once again—of Red Bull favoring the reigning champion. 

Sergio Perez has only himself to blame for his downfall

This season started a lot like 2022. Sergio Perez looked on top of his game, maximizing his and the RB19’s potential. The only difference between the two seasons has been that Verstappen hasn’t had any technical failures this year. After the first few races of 2022, just like 2023, Perez’s performances seemed to have dropped. Most people attributed this to Red Bull developing its car with Verstappen in mind, making changes according to his driving style—basically favoring him over Perez. But as per Helmut Marko, that’s not the case.

Marko was recently asked if the Milton-Keynes team develops its cars to favor Verstappen, considering how the past couple of seasons have played out. The Austrian replied, “No, that is not true. At the beginning of 2022, the car suffered a lot of understeer. This was due to the car being overweight. In the long run, you will not be successful with an overweight car, but as the car became lighter, the car went more to a ‘neutral’ balance—or even a bit more oversteer.” 

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The conclusions that can be made from this are: Perez prefers a car with understeer. That’s his driving style, contrary to Verstappen’s oversteer preference. In both years, as the car developed to become faster, it tended to steer away from Perez’s comfort zone toward a more oversteer feel. It’s up to drivers to change their driving styles as per their cars. While Verstappen has coped well with the understeer at the beginning of the season, Perez’s troubles from last year have followed him into 2023. Although Marko gave him a reality check, he also suggested how the Mexican could improve.

Helmut Marko believes Checo needs to imitate Verstappen

If you go over Perez’s performances in the races after Miami, you’d realize his qualifying performances are bringing him down. His race form is usually top-tier, fighting through the field to get back in front. That’s the problem, though. Considering he has the fastest car on the grid, he shouldn’t have to fight anyone except his teammate. Marko, and almost everyone else, believes he’s put too much pressure on himself to beat Verstappen (even in qualifying), that’s led to frequent mistakes. 

While discussing Perez’s situation, Marko said, “Qualifying is his weakness. He puts too much pressure on himself, but now he’s on his way back. He’s now trying to sit better from the start of the weekend and not experiment with his setup, but rely on the data from the simulator and work from there, and maybe lean a little more on Max, even though they have a different driving style.” Trying to beat Verstappen is probably the most challenging thing to do in F1 at the moment. All Perez should focus on is trying to replicate everything his teammate does and hoping for the best.

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Do you feel the second half of the season will be any better for Sergio Perez?