Red Bull contract negotiations were a 'distraction' - Perez

Sergio Perez has opened up on how the contract extension process at Red Bull affected him, in the midst of a recent dip in performance.

The 34-year-old highlighted how the process is difficult to do in the middle of an already-packed F1 calendar.

Ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix, Red Bull announced that the Mexican driver had been signed to a multi-year deal - his third with the team since joining for the 2021 season. 

The timing of the confirmation raised eyebrows, as it came off the back of two poor weekends for the six-time grand prix winner, in both Imola and Monaco.

His weekend in Montreal did little to allay the question marks over the new contract, after Perez was eliminated in the first part of qualifying for the second round in a row and he suffered another retirement in the race itself.

However, now that his immediate future is wrapped up, Perez hopes to be able to turn his full attention back towards on-track results, calling the process a "distraction" for the Milton Keynes team.

"I think like every negotiation, you always have a process to go through, which is not always really nice to do it in between the races where everything is flat out," he told media including RacingNews365 when asked how straight-forward the negotiations were.

"So it's really nice to get this distraction for the team and for myself out of the way so that we can focus on pure performance. And I think that's the best thing for our team."

Proving perhaps more controversial than the extension itself was the fact Red Bull had offered a multi-year deal. Although, the contract takes the form of a 'one-plus-one', with a team option for 2026 - a compromise given that Perez wanted a two-year agreement.

It will also likely see the relationship extended into the new F1 regulations era, which are being introduced at the start of the contract's team-option year.

Whilst there are murmurs over how competitive Red Bull will ultimately be in the next generation of F1, with the team making power unit production in-house, Perez is focused on the upside of a continued partnership between driver and team.

"There are some great teams making a lot of progress and we've got to do the same," he said. "I think it's always great to be part of a set of regulations with the team.

"When you're changing regulations and you're part of that team, you're already working on that, giving some ideas here and there, and it's something really quite nice to have, to be able to be part of that."