Pierre Gasly is convinced “something is missing” as he weighed in on the struggles that Sergio Perez is experiencing with “big pressure” at Red Bull’s Formula 1 team.
Perez’s nightmare slump continued at Silverstone last weekend as a spin into the gravel at Copse saw him eliminated in Q1 and he then came home in a lapped 17th.
The Mexican has scored a meagre 15 points across the last six rounds to drop to sixth in the championship, a seismic 115 points behind team-mate Max Verstappen.
Rumours have stated Perez’s contract comprises an exit clause which becomes active should he be more than 100 points back from Verstappen at certain moments.
Perez’s troubles have drawn comparisons to Gasly’s troubled period alongside Verstappen which saw the Frenchman dropped 12 races into his Red Bull stint in 2019.
The Frenchman’s successor, Alex Albon, encountered a similar scenario and was dropped to allow the experienced Perez to come into the squad from 2021 onwards.
“First of all, I think my situation was very different than Checo’s situation,” Gasly said. “But I think right now, he is under big pressure.
“I don’t really know what to say to be fair.
“He is a good driver, everybody knows it but he doesn’t seem to get his things together, whether it’s himself or coming from the team.
“I don’t know and can’t really comment on that.”
Having encountered a period driving alongside Verstappen, Gasly believes that Perez’s struggles are all emanating from his discomfort with how his Red Bull handles.
The current Alpine racer has assessed that there’s an obvious disconnect between the driver and the side which is stopping Perez from unlocking the RB20’s potential.
“Ultimately, his problem at the moment is he doesn’t feel the car,” Gasly added. “Whenever you feel strong with a car you have, for whatever reason, an off weekend.
“Next weekend, you come back, you feel good, you put the strong laps in and you don’t even think about it.
“But he just doesn’t seem to be able to get the performance out of it, whether it’s coming from him or the team, I don’t know.
“But there’s clearly something that is missing at the moment between the two.”
Despite the disappointment at another setback in the British Grand Prix, Perez has hinted that having the revised floor that Verstappen ran will help him return to form.
“I’m just trying to find the solutions, really,” Perez commented post-race. “I think we’re making good progress.
“We are just about to unlock a couple of tenths from our side and our life will be very different, back to where we were in the start of the year.”
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