Red Bull needs to address Perez form slump – Horner

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says the team needs to work with Sergio Perez to help him regain his best form after a run of tough races.

Perez has not been on the podium since Monza and has picked up a total of just five points from the past three races including the Sprint event in Qatar. While Lewis Hamilton failed to score in Sunday’s race, he has picked up 29 points in the same spell and is now 30 points adrift of Perez in the drivers’ championship, something Horner wants to help him defend.

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“I think we really need to sit down with Checo because we know what he’s capable of and he’s really not hitting that form at the moment,” Horner said. “We desperately need him to find his form to keep that second place in the championship.

“It’s frustrating that he’s only come out of the (Qatar) weekend with one point, and I think even starting from the back of the grid there was a chance to score heavily, or decently. But we’ll support him as much as we can because with the triple header coming up, there’s a huge amount of points coming up with Sprint races as well.”

Horner said it’s important that Red Bull tries to support Perez ahead of the next run of races, given how important they will be for him in terms of fan following and attention.

“It’s two big races," he said. "He’s going to have a lot of support the next two races, the next three races, really. Latin America and the U.S.; home race in Mexico City. Hopefully that will help him find the form and the confidence he seems to have lost a little bit at the moment.

“I think when you get into a spiral like that the two things (confidence and performance) become intertwined. You need to just sometimes take your foot, put it on the floor, stop the merry-go round and just go back to basics. That’s what we’ll do. We all know what Checo’s capable of and we want to support him to get back into a position, where... even as near ago as Monza he was finishing second place to Max.

“Traditionally (an arm around him) has been the best way of supporting him. We’re fully behind him. We know what he’s capable of, so that’s the form that we want to find.”