Checo Pérez without the car at 100% in the Mexico turn

From one year to date, the moment of Checo Pérez presents an abysmal difference. This time he has zero chance of being one of the three midfielders on the podium of the Drivers’ World Cup.

In Austin he finished ninth in the sprint race and seventh in the main race, while Max Verstappen won the Sprint and climbed onto the Texan podium. The differences between the capacity of their cars is constant and pointed out by the Mexican.

Checo has not placed on the podium since Chinese Grand Prix. In Austin, the date before the Mexico GP, he analyzed his mistakes in the race: “I lost a lot of time staying behind the midfield group at the beginning (…) I started to suffer a lot with the front pitch and the going was quite bad. Overall then it got a little bit worse and I thought maybe it was that tire but then I tried the hard one and it was the same problem and the same pace. I really had trouble with the balance of the car today and it was uncomfortable to drive. The upgrade seems to help us quite a bit at high speed and I didn’t have the full update this weekend, so that’s part of it and the rest is the balance of the car. I’m not sure to what extent to have the total package It would have put us back in contention. We lacked rhythm throughout the weekend. I’m looking forward to next week, but we need to make sure we learn from Austin to make sure that in Mexico we are successful”.

The Mexican indicated that the main difference between his RB20 and Verstappen’s is in “the final specification of the floor”, which seems to have helped the Dutchman win the sprint.

Mexico will be round 20 of 24 F1 races. At the Hermanos Rodríguez Autodromewhere the drivers complete a 4.3 km lap, Checo has achieved third place twice, in 2021 and 2022, and last year he abandoned due to the crash that took him off the track just in the first corner after the start.

“Now we look at Mexico. Checo’s home race, where we hope to build on what we have achieved here and move in the right direction. He has lacked pace compared to Max,” said Christian Horner, Red Bull Team Principal.

Last July, prior to the Hungarian GP, Christian commented on Checo’s car.

“There is a slight difference between the cars. Both have improvements. The only thing Checo is missing is the engine cover, but the floor, the spoiler, the rest is the same between the two. So we have great data.”