Mexican driver Sergio Pérez was confirmed this week as one of the drivers for the new Formula 1 team, Cadillac, alongside another experienced driver (and both the same age, 35) such as Valtteri Bottas. It is his return to the competition after claiming he would take a "sabbatical" from F1 after his controversial exit from Red Bull, when the team opted to fire him, given his drastic drop in performance.
From helping Red Bull win the constructor's championship and finishing runner-up behind his teammate Max Verstappen, to barely score a point in the second half of the 2024 season. Pérez's drop in form was shocking, but "Checo" defends himself on Sky Sports (via Motorsport), describing the car as "undriveable", very difficult to adapt to. "It's a very unique car, very unique driving style that I managed, I'd say, to survive for many years. But it's difficult and it's the way it works", Pérez said, adding that it is very difficult to be the second driver there alongside Max, suggesting that the team always made the car best suited for Verstappen's style, with the second driver having to adapt.
To prove it, he tells how Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson begore him are also struggling to win any points with the car (including being swapped mid-season, with Lawson demoted) "And they're fantastic drivers, you know, but it's just the way it is to drive it. It's just a very unique driving style. Sometimes I could cope with it, I could adapt to it, but as soon as there was a variable with the rain, with the wind or something, it just became undriveable."
Pérez recalls how hard it was for him when he made mistakes one after another and started to lose confidence, "but mentally I was super strong and that's why I survived there for so long, because I did have a lot of pressure and a lot of you guys [journalists] were onto me. And now you realise the job I've done in that car and that team".