Perez spun out of qualifying and started from the pit lane on Sunday before a gamble on strategy in mixed conditions backfired.

That left him two laps down at the chequered flag, ahead only of Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu.

The Silverstone result was Perez’s worst finish of the season and continued a disappointing run that has seen him contribute just 14 points from the last six races.

Team-mate Max Verstappen has scored 86 points in the same period.

Red Bull Racing continues to lead the constructors championship though has seen its advantage erode from 115 points over McLaren (which is third in the constructors’ fight but arguably Red Bull’s biggest threat) in Miami to now stand at 78.

The Woking squad closed seven points in Silverstone as Lando Norris finished third and Oscar Piastri fourth, versus Verstappen in second as Red Bull’s sole points-scorer.

Perez’s current run of results is his worst since joining the squad in 2021. His previous worst run came during his first season with the team, though the six-event stretch from that year’s Austrian Grand Prix still netted him 22 points.

“Checo, of course he’s under pressure,” admitted team boss Christian Horner.

“That’s normal in Formula 1. And when you’re under-delivering, that pressure only mounts. He’s aware of that, he knows that.”

The Red Bull Racing boss did however point out that nothing fell Perez’s way during the race.

“This weekend, nothing’s really gone his way,” he noted.

“We took a gamble in the race. He started on a hard tyre, he was making decent progress early on in the race.

“The rain started to arrive, he was P15 or P16 at the time. You roll the dice a little at that point, as they [Ferrari] did with [Charles] Leclerc.

“He went onto the inter. If the rain would have picked up, he looks a hero. It didn’t.”

An extra stop plus the time lost on a dry track on intermediate tyres meant he plummeted down the order, ruining any chance of a positive result.

However, that he was in that situation stemmed to a driving error that saw him in the gravel and eliminated from Qualifying 1 on Saturday.

Perez collected a slide into Copse in the first segment of the all-important hour which saw him run wide and onto the wet run-off, where he spun and ended up beached in the gravel.

Verstappen made a similar mistake soon after, though he was able to bounce through the gravel and continue, albeit with a heavily damaged floor.

“Of course there’s frustration when your cars, both of your cars, aren’t performing,” said Horner, who offered a frustrated shake of the head as Perez spun out of qualifying.

“It’s frustrating to lose Checo in Q1 [on Saturday]. He’d missed P1 because of Isack Hadjar driving, he’d had a decent P2, we felt that he should have been around the top six.

“Then to lose that car in Q1 was very frustrating.”

Perez’s current slump coincides with an upturn in performance from Red Bull Racing’s rivals. McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes having all won races this season.

Though Mercedes is arguably too far behind in the constructors’ championship to pose any serious threat to Red Bull Racing, McLaren and Ferrari are in a position to challenge.

Perez’s contribution to his team’s points tally is therefore critical and potentially worth tens of millions of dollars in prize money come the end of the season.

“He knows it’s unsustainable to not be scoring points. We have to be scoring points in that car, and he knows that,” Horner said.

“He knows his role and his target and nobody is more eager than Checo to get back and find his form again.

“Every driver’s different,” he added of what he can do to help Perez.

“Some drivers need an arm around the shoulder, some need a kick up the ass – and sometimes it varies from week to week.”

Perez holds a contract with Red Bull Racing for 2025 and beyond, however it’s understood performance clauses are such that it is not – currently – a guarantee he will remain with the squad.

That could open the door for Daniel Ricciardo or Yuki Tsunoda to step up to the senior team from RB, in turn creating space for Liam Lawson or Isack Hadjar in the process.