BUDAPEST, Hungary — Sergio Perez was in a defiant mood after qualifying 16th in Hungary, saying he does not want to teach his kids to just give up and quit when faced with tough situations.
Perez crashed out of the opening qualifying session at the Hungaroring, which eventually saw Lando Norris lead a McLaren one-two. It came at an awful time, with Red Bull looking increasingly likely to replace him at the summer break with another driver.
Perez, a father of four, said he will not throw in the towel because its not the example he wants to set.
Asked if he’s still finding F1 fun at the moment, Perez said: “I wouldn’t say fun, I would say a challenge, something that mentally it’s really tough and the easiest way would be just to give up after the career I’ve had to say it’s been enough, but it’s not what I want to teach my kids, not what I want to show this sort of character.”
He added: “I just want to get back, and I will get back, I will not give up.”
Perez and Haas drivers Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg are the only fathers on the current grid.
The stories of Perez potentially losing his seat have been swirling for a while. Red Bull has already evaluated reserve driver Liam Lawson, while Daniel Ricciardo still might have an outside chance of making the step up.
The Mexican driver has not scored a podium since the Chinese Grand Prix at the end of April.
When asked if he was now worried about losing his seat in August, he repeated what he said during media day ahead of this weekend’s action: “No, like I said before nothing changes, I’m not worried, I’m fully determined to turn my season around and to focus on my performance.”
Perez also failed to advance from Q1 at Silverstone two weeks ago. Perez and Red Bull felt he had turned a corner during Friday practice at the Hungaroring, something which he is pinning his hopes on for Sunday’s race.
“It hurts, you know, that it happened again, especially in the run that I am going through, but yeah I’m determined to turn this around, I believe … yesterday we had a really good day, very promising day, so I think we had very good information on the long runs so hopefully we can have some really good pace to come through the field and hopefully score some points.”
Source: www.espn.com