'I can't be this bad' - Perez hopes Qatar woes are catalyst for better 2024

Heading into the new campaign, Perez is arguably the driver under the most pressure.

His current deal with the team runs out at the end of the season, and his form in F1 2023, was underpar.

Max Verstappen won 19 of the 22 races in 2023, while Perez won just two.

Perez was even under pressure to finish runner-up but held off Lewis Hamilton in the final races.

The lowest point for Perez came in Qatar, when he picked up three separate penalties for track limits.

“It was such a bad weekend that I felt like ‘I cannot be this bad', that there was something else going on,” Perez reflected on Qatar when speaking to Speedcafe.

“So we took the time to understand what was going on with the car. I needed to understand a lot of things that we were doing and to go into a lot of detail.

“The problems we had made me understand a lot more about what I was doing with the setup, and which direction I needed to go when I got issues. It's something that is definitely going to make us stronger.”

Perez believes the events of Qatar has made him stronger.

“I was really in such a hole that we got together after Qatar, and we understood a lot of things we were doing with the car,” he added.

“That was really good on our side. It was bad that it happened, but in a way, it was also good because it strengthened our team quite a lot.”