Sergio Pérez is contesting his second season as a Red Bull driver, and after five races he is in a much more solid state of form than in his first season with Milton Keynes .
The Mexican driver, who is third in the drivers’ championship, took two second places – Melbourne and Imola – and finished fourth on two other occasions, having been able to achieve a similar result at the first round in Bahrain but for a problem in his car that made him leave.
He also achieved his first pole position in Formula 1 at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, on one of the most difficult tracks on the calendar, and his average position on the grid so far is third, well above the seventh place with which it ended in 2021, where clearly qualifying was its weakest point.
All this, added to his very good relationship with Max Verstappen, his teammate, has put Pérez on the right track to earn the opportunity for a third season with Red Bull, despite the pressure he exerts whenever he can Pierre Gasly to return to the team where he had a brief spell in 2019.
During the weekend of the Miami Grand Prix, Christian Horner , director of Red Bull, was asked on Sky Sports about a rumor linking Fernando Alonso as Verstappen’s teammate for 2023, to which the Englishman responded by highlighting the work of Czech Perez.
“We are very focused on our drivers at the moment and Checo has done a great job this year,” commented Horner.
Pérez himself, after finishing fourth in Miami, also had to answer whether he had already started talking with Red Bull in the face of a new contract, to which the driver from Guadalajara answered positively, but clarified that there is no rush.
“We started talking, but we’re not in a hurry to do anything soon,” Perez said simply.
The announcement of Checo’s renewal last year came at the end of August, specifically on the Friday of the Belgian GP, which was the first appointment after the summer break in Formula 1.
Just for that time of year Red Bull plans to make a decision for 2023, as revealed at the end of April Helmut Marko , the team’s sports advisor.
