Red Bull driver Sergio Pérez announced that the team’s 2023 challenger is going to be far superior than the one that saw Max Verstappen coast to his second world championship last season.
Checo has taken the credit for yet another good performance by Red Bull engineers in the off-season by claiming that he was able to “push them in the right direction”.
Although Pérez started and ended the 2022 season strongly, he experienced a dip in the middle of the season.
Despite this, he was still considered a title contender early on, due to his pole position at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and his victory at Monaco.
However, his teammate Max Verstappen eventually overtook him in the rankings. The upgrades made to the car favoured Verstappen’s driving style more, which contributed to his 15 victories.
Pérez and the team have worked on addressing these issues to prepare for the upcoming season.
“Yes, certainly. There are things that we are going to work on,” Pérez said.
“We believe that the car is already going to be better. I’ve been pushing the team in a certain direction, and we believe we’re heading in that direction.
“But we’ll see. Once we get the car, it’s all about adapting ourselves to the car and try to maximise it.”
Pérez accepts responsibility for his mid-season struggles and admits to making the wrong decisions at times.
If he had performed better, he could have finished second in the Driver’s Championship instead of Charles Leclerc.
However, he has used his experiences to make sure he is better prepared for 2023. He has reflected on past mistakes and is determined to enter the new season ready to compete.
“Learning from the mistakes we did, I think sometimes we took the wrong direction with the set-up and that’s very important for us to understand,” Pérez explained.
“I think we figured out towards the end of the season what we were doing with the car, so that’s been crucial for us.
“And I think we are we are heading in the right direction with it.”