Christian Horner says Sergio Perez is a confidence-driven driver as he agrees that they need the Mexican to rise up amid F1 title battle.

It was another low-key weekend for Red Bull’s Perez in F1 Spanish GP. While the Mexican made it into Q3 after recent qualifying struggles, he had to start from 11th due to the penalty he carried on from the Canadian GP weekend.

His struggles started in the first stint itself when he was unable to clear the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg. So much so that Red Bull were forced to convert him to a three-stop strategy in order to get him to finish eighth to be the last of the Top 4 teams drivers.

It was a struggle all-through as Perez admitted to. “Yes, I think with the penalty we had, where we started, it was so difficult to pass on that first stint and then my race was over,” he said to media. “I was stuck behind Nico and I was just sliding around really badly. It was a nightmare of a race. It was very difficult race overall.

“In the end, we switched to a three-stop and we managed to come back to Gasly and secure eighth, but it was very hard. Everything was compromised from that first stint,” summed up Perez, who then went on to explain the issues he is facing. In Spain, he struggled to get the soft tyres running.

On top of that, he has been facing balance issues all-through. He is unable to find that balance between medium to low speed. “I think I have understood a lot of things that happened over the weekend during the race,” Perez started. The balance was quite off on the Softs, so linked to the qualifying issues we had. So, we can come back strong.

“I was quite front-limited. I couldn’t get the rotation and couldn’t get the power down. The problem I have at the moment, is that I can’t balance the car for all the speeds. I am struggling quite a bit in the medium to low speed to be able to have the stability I need with the rotation. That is something I am working quite hard with the team.

“We did some aggressive changes for the weekend, which I don’t think worked, so we will review those. Our weekend was dirty in terms of, we basically explored, more than testing, probably, the car from FP1 to FP2. We have never swung around so many things on set-up. We were a bit desperate to try and find a balance, so we need to review all of that.

“But I see the light out of the tunnel. As I said, I think on the medium the balance felt a lot more together but not so much on soft,” summed up Perez, who dropped to fifth in the drivers’ standings with 111 points against his name. His low run is hurting Red Bull too considering that the likes of Ferrari and McLaren are closing up on the F1 team.

Both Perez and even Horner know it and wants the Mexican to get out of the spiral soon. The Brit feels that he is a very confidence driven driver and lack of it hurts him. “Before the race our simulation said that P8 was the optimum from 11th on the grid,” he said to media. “So he achieved that, we did it on a three stop strategy.

“I hope, that he will take quite a bit of confidence out of that race. And, you know, hopefully take that into the next couple of weekends, which are big weekends for him. If I’m not mistaken I think we extended our lead again. [Yes], we need Checo to start to be in the mix. And he knows that and the team know that.

“And if he’s on the back end of the top eights, you lose strategic options, whether you split your strategies and so on. So I mean, Checo in the first four or five races this year was fantastic. We just need to get back into that headspace. He’s had a couple of difficult races. But things haven’t gone his way and he’s a confidence driven driver.

“Hopefully, he’s back in the points, he drove a decent race. Hopefully he’ll take some competence out of that for the coming races. He works with a team of specialists. So you know, I’m sure he’s focused across all areas,” summed up Horner.