Sergio Perez has refuted a recent claim made by Red Bull team principal Christian Horner that the Mexican could now relax in falling so far adrift of team-mate Max Verstappen.
Two successively wretched weekends from Perez have seen a driver who was just six points adrift of Verstappen after a stellar performance in Azerbaijan plummet to 53 behind the Dutchman after an additional three races.
A crash in qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix that badly compromised his race was followed up by another poor effort on the Saturday of the Spanish GP, although he at least managed a recovery drive to fourth.
Verstappen, however, has won the last three races to establish a commanding cushion over Perez, which prompted Horner to state that the gap between his two drivers would “take pressure off his (Perez’s) shoulders”.
Horner added: “That’ll allow him to now relax, not put pressure on himself, and re-find the form that he had in those early races.”
As to whether Perez agreed, he said: “No, I don’t think so.
“We always have to deliver to our maximum and we just have to make sure we deliver.
“We have a great car and we should be having a lot of podiums, wins, and so on from now until the end of the year.
“We can see the competition is getting closer and closer all the time, but we will try our best.”
As far as Perez is concerned, following his poor run, his mindset is simply to “reset, go again”.
“Basically Monaco was all down to me,” reviewed Perez. “I made a really bad mistake.
“But then in Barcelona in the qualifying again, it was tricky with the damp conditions.
“We didn’t manage to have a good quali and we paid the price on Sunday.
“I am now looking forward to getting back to the form we had early in the season.”
Perez has additionally dismissed suggestions he has found it difficult to get his car in the right window in qualifying.
“It was difficult in Barcelona,” he added. “It’s the only time that I have had difficulties with the car.
“I did struggle through the weekend so it was tricky in Barcelona but other than that, in Monaco, we had the pace to really have a very good weekend but I did a mistake.
“So the first time we had difficulties was in Barcelona.”
It appears there will be additional difficulties for this weekend’s race in Montréal as rain is set to wreak havoc across the three days of track action that commence on Friday with first practice at 13.30 local time (18.30 BST; 0330 Sat AEST).
Perez is anticipating the field to be even more bunched up than normal.
“It’s a tricky racetrack,” said Perez.
‘We saw in Barcelona things are getting closer, and there are always one or two teams that can get really close, especially with how the weekend is looking.
“It’s looking really damp so it will only get things a little bit closer.”
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