Helmut Marko claims Sergio Perez has “woken up from his world championship dream”

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has claimed Sergio Perez has finally woken up and given up on his dream of winning a world championship and is reaping the benefits of it.

The Mexican driver has been having a better time off late after a very worrying off-season slump that saw him not reaching Q3s and podiums in the best car on the grid.

Earlier in the season the Mexican driver was confident that he could take the fight to his double world champion teammate Max Verstappen and challenge him for the world championship this season.

Speaking with Motorsport.com, Marko said of Sergio Perez:

“We have a contract with Perez until the end of 2024. He is second in the world championship. What need do we have to take action? He has now woken up from his world championship dream. Maybe that will help him to focus again on delivering the best possible performance.

"He delivers very good races, he overtakes well. Only the mistakes in qualifying are there. That has always been his weakness. Even at our junior qualifying in Estoril [Portugal] years ago, Ricciardo and Perez were very young back then. We simulated qualifying runs and long runs. They were the fastest, but Perez wasn't there in qualifying."

Sergio Perez speaks on his collision with Lewis Hamilton in the sprint

Sergio Perez stated that he sustained huge damage to his car in his battle with Lewis Hamilton on the track in the sprint race, which forced him to retire and leave without any points.

Speaking to the media, including Sportskeeda, Sergio Perez said:

“Yeah, it was massive damage from the contact from Lewis. He just took the whole right-hand side of the car, he damaged the floor and the sidepod so that was game over. We lost too much grip with it. He just, I think, ran out of grip and could not stop his car, and just went into the side of me and damaged my floor, and that was very unfortunate.

"It was looking great. The team did a great strategy to recover, we were about to get [Pierre] Gasly just before the Safety Car came out. So yeah, it was looking great. But unfortunately, it was just all too late.”

Starting from the front row on Sunday, the Mexican will hope for a better result and also push hard to get his third win of the season with Verstappen starting from P6.