Perez felt Qatar 'warning' was turning point of season

Sergio Perez believes a "warning" after the race in Qatar was a turning point for him during the 2023 Formula 1 season.

The Mexican faced a crushing defeat from Max Verstappen, after he managed to score over twice the amount of points as him in the Drivers' Championship on the way to a third title.

Much of his poor performance came from qualifying, notably at the Japanese Grand Prix which set him up for a race from the back of the grid which he eventually retired in twice.

The following race at Mexico was also a low point when he collided with Charles Leclerc on the opening lap, forcing him out at the first corner in front of his home crowd.

The race at Qatar, in which Verstappen claimed his third title, was a turning point when he went back to the factory to analyse where he was going wrong with engineers.

"I had a really deep, deep warning in Qatar where I went back to the factory for like a week and went through it in detail with all the engineers," Perez told media, including RacingNews365.

"We understood a lot of things that we weren't doing to compensate the weaknesses that we had, and we were probably taking the wrong approach with the car and trying to compensate them too much with car setup."

Perez: We were getting lost every weekend

Perez felt that he was unable to exploit the potential of the RB19 like teammate Verstappen, who could seemingly start out of position and still win a race without any major issues.

After spending time with his engineers, Perez believed that it helped him turn things around in the latter stages of the year and secure a historic one-two for Red Bull in the Drivers' Championship.

"I felt at that time that I needed [it]. We were just getting lost weekend in and weekend out, and it was just important to step back and really look in detail. Since then our season has transformed completely."