Sergio Perez is undergoing "pure neck therapy" to ensure he is fit to race at the British Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver crashed during qualifying in Montreal on Saturday. Though the impact with the softer barrier looked fairly innocuous at the time, the Mexican later learned that he had done some damage to his neck which needs treatment to ensure he is in top shape to compete on British soil during the first weekend of July.
"The start of the week is always hard after such a bad day but I'm fine, recovering from my neck because I have a strong contracture after the crash, which I didn't feel," he told Fox Sports. "It hurt a lot but in general, everything was fine.
"Right now I am preparing for the strong contracture I had in my neck and I can't exercise, I am in pure neck therapy to be 100 percent at Silverstone. Each race works differently because your body is in a different state all the time, there are times that you have to push more cardio, strength or resistance. So you always work different things."
Perez gave no indication that he could miss the race if his rehabilitation does not have the desired effect. Instead, he went on to reflect on another mechanical issue that saw his race in Canada end after only nine laps, and which saw him lose a lot of ground to team-mate Max Verstappen in the title race.
"It was the gearbox," the 32-year-old confirmed. "In fact it was already in its last race, it was very close to the limit and unfortunately it failed. They are things that are difficult to prevent, more so on a track like Canada where there are many bumps. These things happen, unfortunately.
"It is important to solve these issues that are always different for us, each reliability issue has been different during the year, so we have to continue working. It is a point that will decide the championship – without a doubt these DNFs are very expensive at this point of the championship."
Perez is 46 points adrift of Verstappen with 13 races to go this season. Red Bull have won the last six races in a row, but the Dutchman has been the winner of five of those while his team-mate's sole success came at the Monaco Grand Prix.
