He had been waiting for this since May: this weekend, at the Singapore Grand Prix, Sergio Perez again sounded the Mexican anthem at the top of the podium. At the end of a physically and mentally demanding race, the driver Red Bull won his fourth victory in the premier category, the third with the Austrian team, despite an investigation by the commissioners for two offenses committed under Safety Car.
Street racing seems to be doing well for Pérez, as of his 23 F1 podiums he has scored seven on the street circuits of Monaco, Baku and Singapore (including three wins). A performance hailed by Christian Horner, the director of Red Bull Racing, who now hopes that his driver can show a better face for the final sprint of the 2022 season.
“Checo has always been phenomenal on street circuits”Horner said. “He seems to like slippery city circuits. We worked hard with him on the set-up. Hopefully that will give him confidence for the rest of the championship.”
Successful at the start of the year, Pérez had stalled at the end of the Monaco Grand Prix, appearing less and less on the podium and chaining more modest performances. If the interested party willingly associated this deformity with the direction taken by Red Bull in the development of the RB18the characteristics of the single-seater no longer becoming him, the Mexican however felt that his fallow period had been exaggerated by the media.
“This victory is really special for me because I had a bit of a difficult time in the last races”he explained at a press conference in Singapore. “Obviously the media in Formula 1 makes everything worse. Maybe because I’m Mexican and I don’t finish on the podium twice in a row, then I’m having the worst season of my career and Red Bull should fire me .”
“So it’s good to sign this victory. It’s not to remind anyone how good I am, but it’s always good to be able to string together these kinds of performances. And we must continue.”