Sergio Pérez won six Grands Prix in his career, five of which were on street circuits. Whether he can keep up with Max Verstappen in Singapore remains to be seen, but the street circuit does offer more uncertainties, which the Mexican could potentially benefit from in his 250th Grand Prix weekend, as we also saw in 2022. Pérez hopes that it will fate is in his favor again this season.
Although Pérez has the best car in the field with the RB19, he has not won ten races in a row and has only finished second in Belgium and Italy over the last nine weekends. Still, the 2022 victory offers something to hold on to. Verstappen missed out on a good starting spot on Saturday thanks to a rare strategic lapse by the team. On a wet circuit, Pérez got off to a better start than pole sitter Charles Leclerc, after which he never relinquished the lead.
Disaster or succes
After a miserable series of results, in which Pérez missed out on a place in Q3 five times in a row, he has regained his upward trend, with four top four finishes in the last races. That gives Pérez hope for more: “We have been able to make good progress in the last few races, so I am really looking forward to the coming weekends, and especially this weekend,” the Red Bull Racing driver tells Formula1.com. ‘We know here that if Saturday goes well, the rest of the weekend often goes well too. There is no middle ground in Singapore: it is either a great result or it will be extremely painful.’
The circuit has been slightly modified since last year due to work. That means four fewer corners per lap, a lap time that is about ten seconds lower, and one extra lap of suffering in the heat. ‘It’s interesting anyway. Hopefully this will make the racing a bit better and we will see more overtaking actions, but to be honest I doubt that,” Pérez is honest. “Either way it will be a very demanding race, both mentally and physically.”
