John Watson thinks 34-y/o F1 driver must ‘sort it out’ after 2023 troubles

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John Watson feels Sergio Perez needed an ‘arm around the shoulder’ last season but Red Bull will want the Mexican Formula 1 driver to now sort his troubles out himself.

The 34-year-old started 2023 as the most likely person to oppose Red Bull teammate, Max Verstappen, for the drivers’ championship. But the dreams Perez had of winning his first title vanished rapidly. He finished 2023 with fewer than half of Verstappen’s 575 points with 285.

Perez still managed to secure Red Bull their first one-two finish in the drivers’ standings. But the Milton Keynes natives would still have won the constructors’ championship without any of his points. Mercedes finished the year in second spot with 409 points, to Ferrari with 406.

Sergio Perez watched his 2023 Formula 1 title dream evaporate

Verstappen would secure his third-straight drivers’ championship with five rounds to spare in October. He clinched the 2023 crown with second place during the Sprint at the Qatar GP as Perez crashed out whilst fighting Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon over P8.

Only a top-three finish for Perez in the Sprint would have taken the 2023 title fight into the Qatar GP. Yet the Guadalajara native’s dream evaporated before only claiming P10 from his pit lane start in the main race. Perez also dubbed the Qatar GP as his ‘worst weekend ever’.

Perez produced several frustrating weekends throughout the 2023 campaign as the Red Bull driver’s title dream disappeared. Verstappen made light work from P9 on the grid of beating pole-sitter Perez for the win at the Miami GP. Perez also made Q3 in qualifying just 13 times.

John Watson thinks Red Bull will want Sergio Perez to ‘sort it out’

Perez’s woes gained pace straight after the Miami GP as he crashed out of qualifying for the Monaco GP in Q1. The Mexican would only finish the race in P16, too. While Perez crashed into Alex Albon in Singapore, Kevin Magnussen in Japan and Charles Leclerc in Mexico City.

Now, five-time F1 race-winner Watson has suggested that Perez’s problems stemmed from his issues adapting to Red Bull’s car. The ex-McLaren driver feels the RB19 went away from how the Mexican likes to set-up a car. But Red Bull refused to give Perez his desired set-up.

“I think that some drivers are more needing of an arm around the shoulder and consoling,” Watson told Motor Sport Magazine. “And there are some that are as tough as tungsten and they just get on and do it their own way.”

Watson added: “Maybe Sergio doesn’t like the set-up. And I think he did ask maybe at one of the most recent Grand Prix, ‘Can I go back to the car that I was enjoying racing earlier in the year?’. And I think that request was denied.

“I think the argument would be, and I’m only supposing this, is because the team would say, ‘Where we were back in March or April to where we are in September or October, the car is maybe half a second a lap quicker. I’m not going to give you a car half a second a lap slower because you can’t get your head around the current car. Sort it out yourself’.”