Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says Sergio Perez understands that his poor haul of points in recent races needs to change.
Horner extended Perez’s contract to drive for the team last month. However he hit a slump in form around the same time and has only scored 15 points over the last six rounds.
Horner’s frustration was visible when Perez spun in the first round of qualifying and became stuck in a gravel trap, leaving him 19th on the grid.
“Of course it’s frustrating when both of your cars aren’t performing collectively,” said Horner. “It was frustrating to lose Checo in Q1.
“He’d missed [first practice] because of Isack Hadjar driving. He had a decent P2. He probably should have been around the top six and then to lose that car in Q1 was very frustrating.”
The team opted to start Perez from the pit lane with a fresh engine but he was unable to score points from there.
“This weekend nothing’s really gone his way,” said Horner. “We took a gamble in the race. He started on the hard tyre, he was making decent progress early on in the race.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
“The rain started to arrive, he was P15 or 16 at the time. You roll the dice at that point, as they did with Leclerc. We went onto the inter.
“If the rain had picked up he’d have looked a hero. It didn’t, so we had an extra stop and the time loss being on an inter on a drying track was haemorrhaging a lot of time for him. So obviously a lot to look at from over the weekend.”
This was the third time in five races Perez has failed to score, which Horner said cannot continue.
“He knows it’s unsustainable to not be scoring points,” said Horner. “We have to be scoring points and he knows that. He knows his role and his target and so nobody is more eager than Checo to get back.”
McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown said last weekend Red Bull should be “very concerned” Perez’s performance is allowing his team to catch them.
“They took seven points out of us today,” Horner acknowledged. It’s something that we’re acutely aware of. To win a constructors’ championship you need both cars scoring.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories – and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here: