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Jonathan Noble

Red Bull hopes Singapore F1 win gives Perez confidence after rough patch

Perez pulled off a brilliant victory at the Marina Bay circuit on Sunday, holding off race-long pressure from Charles Leclerc to grab his first win since the Monaco GP in May.

He also managed to keep hold of the win despite being found guilty of two separate safety car rule infringements, having dropped back too far ahead of the restarts.

Perez’s win comes off the back of a barren spell for the Mexican, where he has recently struggled to get as much out of the Red Bull RB18 as teammate Max Verstappen. He has had just one other podium finish since the summer break with a second place in Belgium.

But having produced a well-earned victory in Singapore, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner hoped Perez could now hit his stride over the remainder of the campaign.

“Checo has always been phenomenal at streets circuits,” said Horner. “He seems to like slippery street tracks. And we've been working hard with him on setu-ps and so on.

"I think that hopefully this will now give him confidence for the remainder of the championship.”

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB18 (Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool)

Perez has been open that, as the RB18 has been developed this season, he has not felt as comfortable with its handling characteristics. But while not shying away from the fact that the results have not been as good as he may have liked, he thinks his fallow period was made too much of.

“This win is really special for me, because I've had a bit of a rough patch in the last few races,” he explained.

“I mean, obviously, the media in Formula 1 makes it extremely a lot bigger, maybe because I'm just Mexican, and if I'm not two races in a row in the podium, then I'm having the worst season ever and Red Bull should drop me and all that sort of stuff that you get to see.

“So yeah, it’s just nice to get that win. It’s not a reminder to anyone of how good I am, but it's just always good to be able to put together this sort of performances. And yeah, just keep going.”

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