Sergio Pere🏅z insists this year has been his most difficult in Formula 1.

The Red Bull driver enter𒈔ed the season knowing Daniel Ricciardo was among the contenders to✅ replace him.

A series of early podiums established Perez b🅰ut he began to struggle, and was unable to tame the RB20 which it later emerged was declining in competitiveness.

Max Verstappen was initially able to overcome his car’s problems but, whe🌸n the F1 champion also started struggling, Perez🅺’s woes were contextualised.

"This year has been complicated,” he told .

“I think that this year it has been very hard to have a car with the limitations that I have had this season and not being🧸 able to express it, right?

“Because your teammate is winning, he is doing very well and yoꦜu have an increasingly bigger barrier.

"It was hard all summer, I think it was one of my 😼most difficult moments in F𒊎1.”

Pere🥀z was asked to erase one moment from his career that he’d rather forget, and he answered: "Forgettin𒉰g about these last six months, it has been hard, honestly.

"Imagine when you have a car that is so limiting that you come to the weekend and you know you can't do aꦚnything with it, and the only thing you're thinking is that at any moment you coul🌱d crash it because you don't have control of it."

There was huge speculation that Perez would lose his Red Bull race seat at🅘 the mid-way stage of this year.

Ultimately they opted to back him, and instead RB’s R𝓡icciardo was replaced by Liam Lawson.

"In the end, the issue of the contract was sometꦡhing that people forget,ไ” he said.

“I made a contract just t♑his season, and many times people talk about more, but I  wasn't worried, I know where 🐲I stand."

Perez delivered an encouraging display in Azerbaijan, contending foꦺr a podium until an unfortunate last-lap crash with Carlos Sainz.

His lack of points is a major contributor to McLaren overtℱaking Red Bull at the top of the con🎶structors’ championship.