The Canadian GP ended early for Sergio Pérez. The Mexican driver had a gearbox problem on lap 9 and had to retire from the race. The Red Bull driver had started in 13th position after making a mistake in the rain during qualifying and falling in Q2 and was looking for a recovery race, but ended up regretting the result that makes his life very difficult in the championship fight with teammate Max Verstappen.

"Zero points when you are fighting for the championship weighs a lot. But it's still a very long championship, it hurts too much today and I want to forget that day. We were overtaking, saving tires and especially the brakes. So our race had a lot of potential," said Pérez after the race in Montreal.

This was Pérez's second abandonment of the season, the first since the Bahrain GP, Formula 1's 2022 opener. Czech called for Red Bull to remain focused on solving the reliability problems that have already cost the team important points. Asked if the crash on Saturday had affected the gearbox breakdown on Sunday, the Mexican promptly refuted the idea.

Sergio Pérez lamentou resultado no Canadá pensando na disputa do campeonato (Foto: Red Bull Content Pool) — Sergio Pérez regretted the result in Canada thinking about the championship race (Photo: Red Bull Content Pool)

"It's not what we think at the moment. We have a new regulation and everyone is taking everything on the limit. We have these new rules and it must be something related to that. The car is shaking more, so it's different problems we have," Sergio explained.

"We need to keep paying attention to these things, the gearbox was at the end of its useful life. We need to keep an eye on that because reliability is very painful. And having a zero, thinking about the championship, is painful too," the Mexican driver lamented.

Helmut Marko, Red Bull's consultant, contradicted the driver himself. The Austrian said that the gearbox should have held up during the race, and that the crash in qualifying may have had an effect on the breakdown early in the Canadian GP.

Sergio Pérez discordou de Helmut Marko sobre causa do abandono no Canadá (Foto: Red Bull Content Pool) — Sergio Pérez disagreed with Helmut Marko about the cause of the abandonment in Canada (Photo: Red Bull Content Pool)

"The gearbox was at the end of its useful life, but it should have held up. So we suspect it might also be a consequence of the accident on Saturday, even though he didn't hit anything directly with the gearbox. It was unfortunate, but we could see with [Charles] Leclerc that it was very difficult to overtake traffic, even for the best cars," Marko said.

The result puts Pérez 46 points behind teammate Max Verstappen, who currently has 175 points at the top of the Drivers' World Championship. Formula One returns on July 3 for the British GP at Silverstone.