Why Sergio Perez doesn’t make ESPN’s Top 10 for 2023،
On paper, Sergio Perez was an ideal candidate for a place among our top ten F1 drivers of 2023. He was one of two not named Max Verstappen to win a race and he finished second to the Dutchman in the world championship .
And yet, he didn't make the ESPN list, which you can read in full here. This is of course entirely subjective, but the fact that this question is even open for debate highlights the kind of year Perez has had. His form was so inconsistent that much of the narrative around him was whether he would still be driving for Red Bull in 2024. He will be, but that question will linger at the surface next year.
Was his season really bad enough to not make the top ten? As always, these things depend on context. There's a key caveat in the list compiled by my colleague Laurence Edmondson earlier this month: the rankings are “based on what car they had, what stage they are at in their career, and what expectations they have faced at the start of the season. so let's break it down like this.
The car at his disposal
This may be the most damaging part of Perez's year. The RB19 will go down as the most dominant car in modern F1 history – the previously one-sided seasons of Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton pale in comparison to what Verstappen achieved. Perez was fortunate to own one of the best F1 cars a team has built in recent memory, but finished with half his teammate's points total. As Red Bull celebrated constructors' championship success, Verstappen's results would have won it single-handedly.
It could be argued that Verstappen's incredible form made the RB19 look better than he was, but the margin of many of his wins showed just how much pace there was to be found. While Verstappen could well have won the same number of races alongside an in-form Perez, his teammate should have been on the podium most weekends. Since his second and final victory in Baku, Perez has only been on the podium six times: in the same time frame, Lando Norris has had seven podiums, while Hamilton and Charles Leclerc have had five each, all three in cars lower than the RB19.
For some reason, Perez just couldn't get through it. The Mexican driver's problems appeared to be rooted in qualifying, where poor performances often put his RB19 out of position and forced him to play catch-up in the race. A heavy crash during qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix, a race he won 12 months previously, summed up the season that was to follow, leaving him with the prospect of a frustrating Sunday.
Where he is in his career
Pérez is one of the most experienced drivers on the grid with 257 starts – only Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton have started more races – and it was surprising to see his year fall apart so dramatically and quickly. Of course, Verstappen became the ultimate killer of his teammates on the grid, with Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon both struggling to match him in their stints in the same car. You can also point out how the results shifted towards Verstappen and away from Daniel Ricciardo at the end of 2018, after the Australian confirmed his intention to drive elsewhere the following year. But, as one of the longest-serving drivers on the grid, Pérez is at a different stage of his career to his three predecessors in the job and so more was expected of him. Perez never escaped the downward spiral he embarked on from Monaco. His mistake at the start of the Mexican Grand Prix was more like that of an over-enthusiastic young driver than that of one of the elder statesmen on the grid.
Before Red Bull, Pérez had become accustomed to overperforming in often difficult-to-drive cars, learning patience and perfecting his racing art with machines that, for so long, gave him no chance of winning. While Gasly and Albon's poor form directly led to huge pinch points in their respective careers, they could both argue that they had been promoted earlier than expected by Red Bull and before they were necessarily ready to Try the challenge. Both were rightly given a second chance elsewhere. On the other hand, Pérez's opportunity with Red Bull was long overdue and he waited his entire career to drive a car as good as 2023 and, after his strong start, he wasted it.
Expectations
Much like Valtteri Bottas with Hamilton, Perez expected (or hoped) to fight Verstappen in 2023. Instead, we got one of the most boring and one-sided F1 championships in history, which colors maybe some of what was written here. Verstappen probably would have won the championship before the Abu Dhabi finale, but Perez had the car and, more importantly, the talent to have at least made the title fight some sort of spectacle.
Even before his arrival at Red Bull for 2021, Perez had made a name for himself as one of the most talented in F1, in terms of race driving and tire management. His form ebbed and flowed over the three seasons that followed, but at the start of the year there was a feeling that Perez simply needed to build momentum and rack up results – in d In other words, stay in the race, like Nico. Rosberg succeeded in 2016 against Hamilton.
Luckily for Perez, one of the biggest believers in his talent is Red Bull, as evidenced by how strongly they backed him through the lowest moments of 2023. In his time, he remains one of the best drivers on the F1 grid, which he demonstrated. in a superb and fair wheel-to-wheel duel with Fernando Alonso during the Brazilian Grand Prix. But that fight wasn't always there – he meekly surrendered victory to Verstappen in Miami and let his overenthusiasm get the best of him when a good result was on the table at his home race in Mexico.
How was the rest?
We hadn't forgotten the other half of the grid: here's a look at where we felt the remaining drivers fit in after this season.
11. Sergio Perez – See above.
12. Pierre Gasly – A decent first year for Alpine capped by a podium at the Dutch Grand Prix, but found themselves stuck in the middle of the pack with the car they owned. Gasly's qualifying form against Esteban Ocon puts him just ahead of his teammate.
13. Esteban Ocon – Like Gasly, Ocon's highlight was a podium finish (in Monaco), but ultimately he and the team were unable to replicate some of the highlights of previous seasons during what was another tumultuous year in behind the scenes.
14. Daniel Ricciardo – After a popular comeback with AlphaTauri, he was unlucky to break his hand at Zandvoort just as he was gaining momentum. His highlight was a superb seventh place in Mexico, but he simply didn't compete in enough races to feature higher.
15. Liam Lawson – The Kiwi impressed as Ricciardo's replacement and the biggest compliment that can be paid to his five-race stint in the car is that he never looked out of place, even during the Dutch GP on a wet track, where he replaced Ricciardo before qualifying. He was unlucky not to be given a full-time racing seat and should be on the radar of several teams for 2025.
16. Nico Hulkenberg – Showed no signs of rust after three years away and impressed, when he could, in the lazy and temperamental Haas car. He comfortably outqualified teammate Kevin Magnussen throughout the year.
17. Valtteri Bottas – We know what Bottas can do on a good day, but the Alfa Romeo car just wasn't competitive enough for him to show it, ending the year with only a handful of points to his name.
18. Zhou Guanyu – After an uneven rookie season, Zhou did not start his sophomore season as many would have hoped. He retained his seat for 2024 but will need to produce more consistently to stay beyond that.
19. Lance’s Walk – He deserves credit for the way he recovered from an injury in pre-season training without missing a race, but was completely demolished by Fernando Alonso in what was a competitive car for a most of the year. He scored no podiums compared to eight for the Spaniard and should have scored many more points. Stroll continues to look like the most glaring weakness on his father's team.
20. Kevin Magnussen – Fairly anonymous for most of the year and found himself outclassed by a returning teammate after a three-year absence. Following his remarkable 2022 campaign, his season has been disappointing.
21. Nyck De Vries – Whether you agree with his dismissal or not, in 11 races De Vries failed to convince Red Bull that he was the right person to sign for AlphaTauri. Given how his season ended, it's impossible to place him anywhere other than the back of this list.
22. Logan Sargent – Was lucky to retain his seat for 2024 and, unlike De Vries, he was given a full season and still hasn't shown any signs of major improvement. The Floridian didn't overqualify his teammate Alex Albon once. Williams pointed to Sargeant's bolder performances later in the year as a reason to keep him around, but he also lucked out in the lack of realistic options available to the team. He too is under enormous pressure to perform next year.
