The Mexican endured a calamitous weekend in Monaco as he crashed in qualifying and finished outside of the point🐻s, enabling race-winner Verstappen to enjoy a 25-point swing over him. 

Verstappen’s fourth victory in six races saw him extend his championship 😼lead to 39 points over Perez, who has claimed the other two🐽 grand prix wins this year.

Despite the large deficit he now faces, Perez is convinced he can still be🍒at Verstappen and clinch his maiden world championship. 

"I've been a match to Max since the beginning of the season, in one way or anoཧther," Perez said. "It is sometimes better, sometimes w🍸orse and it's where I believe you have to be.

"I think being teamma✅tes with Max ♑is probably the toughest thing you can have because he is a driver who has the most form of all, and I do believe it's possible to beat him.”

Perez says he has put his nightmare Monaco weekend behind him and is looking forward to g🔜etting his title challenge back on track at the Spanish Grand Prix. 

"Formula 1 is my pasಌsion," he said. "I live for it, so it hurts a lot because you work so hard as a team and it feels like you have let♋ your whole team down, so it hurts.

"But now this is behind me. It was impo𓆏rtant for me to put my hand up and I 📖think every time you do a mistake, that is what you've got to do. Take responsibility.

꧃"If this crash happened and I was 0.5s or a second off, I would be more concerned. But the positive thing is the speed is there to be able to swing around things, but for now I am mainly focused on weekend by weekend and I want to win and gಞet victories on my side."