Perez: Verstappen has come into similar issues [like mine]

Red Bull have been stuck in a downward spiral for the past few races; their RB20 not a match to the beast McLaren's MCL38 has become, with Verstappen under pressure from Lando Norris in the Formula 1 Drivers' Championship, while Red Bull's Constructors' Title is as good and lost to McLaren.

One of the reasons Red Bull have been struggling in the Constructors' Championship is the fact that Perez has not been contributing enough points to help his team fend off the McLaren attack.

Despite a decent start to his 2024 F1 season - four podiums in the first seven races - Perez has struggled since the Emilia Romagna GP to replicate such results, the race when Red Bull brought the first major upgrade to their RB20.

While Verstappen continued to fight at the sharp end of the grid, winning three races since then, Perez has gone off the radar with his future coming under speculation, that is, until Red Bull decided to stick with him following the summer break.

But now Verstappen seems to be unable to extract performance from his once dominant car, and his winning tally stopped at seven - he last won in Barcelona - with particularly tough races in Hungary, Belgium, and last week in Italy.

Perez finished eighth at Monza last weekend, Verstappen in sixth, as the Bulls struggled to keep up with the competition.

Quoted by F1's Official Website, Perez reflected: "[I’m] really disappointed. I was expecting it to be difficult, but not this bad. We basically were slow and had high deg [degradation], especially on the medium.

"I compromised my race a little bit, I think, to keep George [Russell] behind, but that worked quite well for us because we were able to hold George behind for a little bit, and in the end he came really close to Max, so I think it made a difference to the team in terms of points we secured today," he explained.

The Mexican driver looked back on his recent struggles but admitted his three-time F1 Champion teammate is now in the same boat.

He claimed: "I really feel like I’m in the same boat as I’ve been in for the last eight, 10 races, but now all of a sudden Max has come into similar issues, so yeah, a little bit of a confusion there, but it is clear in the data where the problem is.

"I am very confident the team here at track and back at home have the solution, we have produced great cars in the past, and there is no reason why we cannot get back on track.

"We have no questions now, we know the problem. Given it is all related to balance, if we can find a fix then we can switch it around, but for now, it’s head down until we find the answer," Perez concluded.