How his home race crash perfectly encapsulates why Perez lost the 2023 F1 title battle

“I had a very good start and I was only thinking of winning the race. I didn't want to be on the podium. I've been on the podium two years in a row. I saw the opportunity and I went for it. In hindsight, I took a risk. But if I had pulled it off, I would have come out of Turn 1 in the lead.”

Sergio Perez’s attitude after his Turn 1 crash with Charles Leclerc in Formula 1’s 2023 Mexican Grand Prix was excellent. His thinking was clear and engaging, his move not to blame Leclerc on a weekend where there was significant tension around driver rivalry and ensuing fan response was classy.

Going for the lead from fifth on the grid with a lightning start allied to a win-or-bust desire is exactly what we want from a driver racing in one of F1’s few top seats. That it happened at that driver’s home race, with hundreds of thousands of adoring fans packing in over the weekend, adds a wonderful romantic tinge to the whole thing.

Perez had been boosted by Red Bull’s best starts in ages – think the McLarens swamping Max Verstappen at Suzuka’s opening corners and the Mercedes pair doing the same in Qatar.

Team boss Christian Horner said it was “probably his best start of the season”, with Verstappen revealing after winning in Mexico City that Red Bull previously hadn’t been doing “the right thing with tyre temperature, clutch settings” since addressing an early season start problem.

No wonder Perez wanted to have a go when the outside chance appeared on the long run away from the grid.

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A lightning start saw Perez make a do-or-die passing attempt on Charles Leclerc at Turn 1

“It hurts a lot for them [the Mexican fans], but I'm going home at ease because I gave absolutely everything,” Perez said of his move. “Maybe if I had finished on the podium knowing that I had the chance to win the race…

“It's sad for all the people because I wanted to give them the victory no matter what.”

Here is where that excellent approach meets cold, hard, F1 reality.

In crashing out with sidepod and floor damage, Perez is now just 20 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the 2023 drivers’ championship. Were it not for the Mercedes driver’s Austin disqualification, they would be tied on 238.

"It’s a tough moment for him. It’s in front of his home crowd and he was very emotional" Christian Horner

Given the RB19 is going to go down as one of F1’s most famous cars thanks to its steamrollering success this year – with Verstappen beating the 15 wins he secured in 2022 at the same track where he toppled previous joint record holders Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel (14 vs their respective 13s from 2004 and 2013) last year – for it possibly not to have its drivers as the top two in the championship is shocking.

That situation, which Hamilton’s Qatar crash and final Austin result looked to have likely sealed in Perez’s favour before last Sunday’s events, does nothing to stop the speculation and questions over the Mexican driver’s Red Bull future. Ultimately, it increases the uncertainty.

“It’s a tough moment for him,” Horner said of his comments to Perez from the pitwall after his RB19 had been retired in the pits last Sunday. “It’s in front of his home crowd and he was very emotional.

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Perez has three races left to convert second place in the championship

“I just said to him, ‘The next race is next week. You’re going for the lead in your home race, you wouldn’t be a racing driver if you weren’t going for it’. I think he would have been on the podium for sure without a shadow of a doubt. It’s a big loss for him here with a car that was capable of being on the podium.

“He’s got three races to convert that second place. There are 20 points between him and Lewis. He’s had some misfortune, he’s had some issues, but we still believe he can do it between now and the end of the year.

“It’s not as binary as [get second in 2023 or you’re fired for 2024]. You’ve got to look at the circumstances and so on. And Checo has an agreement with us for next year and that’s our intention – for him to be in the car in 2024.

“We’ll give him all the support we can to ensure that he finishes second, but there’s no prerequisite that if he doesn’t finish second, ‘you’re out’.”

That’s as firm a backing as Perez is going to get at a team so famed for its ruthless treatment of underperforming drivers. But what went wrong for him in Mexico actually perfectly encapsulates what’s hindered him when it really mattered in 2023 and what he must put right for next year.

In trying to go around the outside of Leclerc, with Verstappen on the inside and already on course to take the lead from starting third a la 2021, Perez tried too hard, too early.

He was trying to make something up when it was already lost. His chances of making it through the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez track’s first corners in the leading places without even needing a do-or-die move had been severely hampered by his poor qualifying the day before.

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Horner says Red Bull's intention is to have Perez in the car next season

Perez says that he “didn't expect Charles to brake so late since he was the car in the middle”, but this overlooks the 2019 Austrian GP-hardened Leclerc, who was the only driver to really take on Verstappen’s Austin GP surge at the start of this current triple header.

In braking when he did, Leclerc showed once again that if he has a car capable of being a victory threat, he has the mettle to make things happen.

“He had a lot less margin than Max, who was on the inside,” Perez added. “And I was the one who could brake the latest because I was on the outside.”

But Perez’s post-braking move was all wrong – it was, again, too much, too soon. Much like his driving post-Miami defeat, with that Monaco Q1 crash and run of five early summer Q3 misses. Back in Spain, Horner put this down to feeling the pressure of taking on Verstappen at the front of the pack. And it can be seen in the data.

In trying to go around the outside of Leclerc, with Verstappen on the inside and already on course to take the lead from starting third a la 2021, Perez tried too hard, too early

In qualifying in Qatar, for example – where Verstappen scored GP pole and Perez was out in Q2 – Perez was braking later and losing time on the exit to his team-mate through each of the critical corners. This was at a high-speed venue where the gulf between them is fully exposed. It comes down to overdoing it in areas where less can often be more.

The lesson for Perez, then, is that he’s got to go back to basics, which Horner said as much after Qatar and the three track limits penalties he picked up in that bizarre race, where at least Perez raced from a pitlane start to score a point.

To avoid overdoing things – that is a terrible approach for the slippery Mexico City track anyway. Getting through last Sunday’s first corners in a podium place just would have far better than a DNF.

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Even a strong second might just have provided Perez with critical momentum looking to the remainder of this campaign

And there was also the possibility Perez might have had a chance to win later anyway in a race that was to be turned on its head by Kevin Magnussen’s crash.

But in any case, even a strong second behind Verstappen and lapping up the intense passionate support for him in the Foro Sol stadium might just have provided Perez with critical momentum looking to the remainder of this campaign and onwards to 2024.

Now, his current mindset and subsequent approach likely needs a full off-season reset to properly correct.

The scale of challenge facing Perez when he then returns is formidable given he’s going up against a true F1 great in Verstappen. But it’s surely his only chance of recovering form and emerging as a fresh title contender.

And, if Red Bull is again the clear dominant team in 2024, F1 really needs Perez to be exactly that.

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The scale of challenge facing Perez when he returns in 2024 is formidable