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Horner describes Perez 'arm around the shoulder' intervention

The Mexican suffered a spate of poor qualifying performances, which led to an intervention from Team Principal Christian Horner.

Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner has described how he helped Sergio Perez regain his confidence, after a spate of poor qualifying performances with the team. The Mexican was knocked out of qualifying during Q3 in five of the last seven events, which has left him having to battle through the field from outside the top ten. Perez described how he lost his confidence in the RB19 following his crash during qualifying for the Monaco GP, which forced him to start from the back of the grid. His form was also not helped by his indecision during changeable conditions, which hit its peak at the Canadian GP when a miscommunication with the team forced him out in Q2 .

Horner has described how he worked with Perez to regain his confidence when speaking to media, including RacingNews365: "I think it's always a team effort. I think every driver is different. "Some need an arm around the shoulder, some need a kick up the butt. Checo is definitely the arm around the shoulder type of character. "We're just doing our best to support him as a team, to give him the help to achieve what we know he's capable of doing." The recent Belgian Grand Prix was the first time Perez has led a race since Miami, when the points gap between him and Max Verstappen was just 14 in the Drivers' Championship. This has now extended to 125 midway through the season, with Perez under threat from both Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton for second.

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