Related items

• Perez hoping to turn 'terrible' season around at home grand prix

  Sergio Perez described his 2024 Formula 1 season as "terrible", but is hoping for a strong result at the Mexican Grand Prix this weekend to turn his campaign around. 

  Perez currently finds himself eighth in the drivers' championship and 204 points behind Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen. 

  The Mexican started the season strongly with four podium finishes in the first five races, but has since failed to reach the top three. 

  Back-to-back retirements in Monaco and Canada halted his early season momentum, with Perez not finishing higher than sixth in the last 13 races since.

  His recent run of form has seen McLaren overtake Red Bull in the constructors' standings, with the British-based team now 40 points in front heading into the final five races.

  "I know I've had a terrible season. It started really well, but it's been really, really difficult," Perez told BBC Sport.

  "If I had a strong result, it can definitely change my season massively in terms of personal feeling. So I'm really up for it."

  The Mexican's start to the season was rewarded with a new two-year deal, but Perez's subsequent slump has led to sustained speculation about his future.

  After Red Bull chose to stick with him beyond the summer break, Perez impressed at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but finished without anything to show for it after a last-lap collision with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz. 

  He then finished 10th and seventh in the following two races in Singapore and the United States. 

  But the return of highly-rated Liam Lawson, who finished ninth in Austin last weekend in his first race since replacing Daniel Ricciardo at RB, has further heightened focus on Perez's form. 

  Yuki Tsunoda is also still aiming to make his claim for a promotion, while Franco Colapinto has also impressed since taking over from Logan Sargeant at Williams. 

  "This is Formula 1. Sometimes the results are not coming, and you just have to make sure you keep your head down," Perez said. 

  "You focus on the stuff that you can control and the rest is something that you cannot get bothered with."

• Norris frustrated by Verstappen's 'incorrect' driving in Austin

  Lando Norris accused Max Verstappen of "incorrect" driving following the incident at the United States Grand Prix that led to him receiving a time penalty.

  The McLaren driver overtook Verstappen in the latter stages of the race but was given a five-second penalty for leaving the track to gain an advantage while making the pass.

  The penalty meant that Norris dropped from third to fourth, and now sits 57 points behind the Drivers' Championship leader with only five races remaining.

  McLaren have announced plans to launch a bid to overturn the penalty on Thursday, saying the Brit was left with no option but to go off the track as Verstappen broke late and ran wide and off the track on the turn.

  "We'll ask questions. We've already asked certain questions. It's not something that needs to be done publicly or anything," Norris told Sky Sports F1 when asked about whether the rules need to be clarified when two cars go off track.

  "But we can just have conversations on why I got the penalty because I don't believe it was correct. I think the majority of people don't agree it was correct, but that's life and sometimes it doesn't go your way.

  "I think things just need to be clear for the future on what's allowed and what's not. I think the fact of getting off your brakes to achieve just the ruling of being ahead at apex, no matter how wide you run on the exit, is incorrect and I don't think that's how racing should be.

  "Of course, that's the ruling at the minute and that's just what you've got to deal with. So I think there needs to be some tweaks."

  Norris also admitted he did not think Verstappen's driving in the incident was "how racing should be".

  "Max is the best in the world in this style of defence and attacking. So, I have to be at his level and at the moment I am not quite at the level I need to be at.

  "It's a shame to say, but it's probably the truth. At the same time, it's a chance for me to learn and progress."

  However, Verstappen did not understand the frustration, pointing out that he was following the rules during the incident in Austin.

  "It's how the rules are written. I don't make the rules, first of all. I just follow the rules, as much as I can," Verstappen told Sky Sports F1.

  "Of course, sometimes you get caught out with it. We've had that in the past. I just implement the rules and play with them.

  "At the end of the day, you cannot overtake outside of the white line. That's a very clear rule, and I've been done by it myself.

  "So, I don't understand why then, suddenly now, we need to ask and scream for changes in the regulations when it's been like that forever.

  "I mean, I grew up go-karting, F3, F1 - you know that you cannot pass outside of the white line, it's as simple as that."

• Alonso: Landmark 400th race 'demonstrates my passion for F1'

  Fernando Alonso is gearing up for his landmark 400th Grand Prix this weekend, with the Spaniard believing the milestone highlights "my passion for F1".

  The two-time world champion, who is ninth in this season's championship standings, will become the first driver to reach that figure at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

  Even after all these years, Alonso says getting behind the wheel "pays off all the sacrifices" for the demands of travelling to 24 races a year.

  "To reach 400 now is a big number," he told F1's Beyond The Grid podcast. 

  "Knowing that no one reached that number in the past - maybe someone does in the future, but not many, let's say a group of five or 10 maximum - it just demonstrates my love for racing, for F1, how much I enjoy this lifestyle, motor racing in general."

  World champion in 2005 and 2006, Alonso acknowledged he could never have envisaged wracking up 400 races when he entered F1 as a teenager in 2001.

  And the 43-year-old's achievement is even more remarkable, 15 years after he considered walking away from the sport for good.

  "I think that guy in 2001, I was not really thinking too much about the future," he added. "The dream was coming alive, driving [in] F1, the first race.

  "I didn't have a clear roadmap into my career. I didn't know exactly what the next race was, what my next team would be. I was improvising [and] every weekend was a new adventure.

  "What I would say is that when I won the [second] championship in 2006, and then I joined McLaren, I had a three-year contract for 2007, 2008 and 2009, and I was 99% sure that 2009 would be my last F1 season. That was my very clear plan in my head.

  "When I signed that contract, in my head at that time, it was like a long-term contract and three years may feel long, but this is the last. I had already fulfilled my dream. This was beyond my wildest imagination to be an F1 champion, so what else could I do here?

  "I don't think that the 19-year-old, Minardi 2001 Fernando will think something strange about the 400 Grands Prix, because I was not thinking too much into the future. But in 2007, for sure, this would be a surprise."