Sergio Perez has made a solid start to the 2024 Formula One campaign. Though it was his spectacular collapse in form following the Miami Grand Prix in 2023 which is remembered from last season rather than the stela start he did in fact make.

Checo won two of the first four races in Saudi Arabia and in Azerbaijan 2023 and after five rounds was 105-119 to Max Verstappen. Now after five rounds of this season Checo’s count to his team mate stands at 85-100, which is clearly worse, though as yet not by much.

 

 

 

Next five races the test for Sergio

The test for the Red Bull driver will come over the next four of five Grand Prix. The team expect Perez to be making podiums when Max is winning and picking up the pieces for the win should anything happen to the world champion.

And this was Sergio’s problem last season. After two race wins and two podiums in the first five rounds, Checo could only clock up another five podiums across the final 16 races of the year.

And while Red Bull won the constructors championship at a canter, as the other F1 team’s close in on the world champions, having two drivers scoring highly becomes vital – even for Red Bull with the all conquering Verstappen.

The gulf between the points scored last season by the two Red Bull drivers led to a debate over whether the cars designed in Milton Keynes were in fact to a specification that suited perfectly Max Verstappen’s driving style. This was something Horner et al strenuously denied.

Steiner F1 return?

 

 

 

Horner denies RB cars designed for Max

“You develop a car to be as quick as you can and sometimes quick cars are difficult cars. That’s what’s historically been the case,” said Horner.

“I think that the good drivers adapt. You see it in wet conditions, mixed conditions, varied conditions. The elite, they adapt quickly.

However, the Red Bull boss was not helped when Checo’s father decided to go public with his thoughts on why his son appeared to be miles behind his team mate.

Sergio Perez revelas “100%” F1 future

 

 

 

Perez Snr lays blame at Red Bull door

“Checo continues to struggle with the car in something that we have not detected,” he said speaking to Mexican media outlet ESTO following the 2023 Japanese Grand Prix.

“The car is set for Max. Max drives with all the grip in the front, and Checo has driven all his life and all the time he has driven with the grip in the back.

“So today Checo has to adapt to driving a car, and Max doesn’t.”

However, the idea of a team being ‘built around’ a driver was addressed by Christian Horner back in 2017, when Max was just a two times race winner “Lewis is pretty set at Mercedes, Seb has signed for three years at Ferrari. The obvious thing is to build a team around you [Verstappen].”

Marko confirms Vettel F1 return

 

 

 

Perez “no pace” to catch Norris

So Sergio has not started this year as well as he did last and the gulf between him and Verstappen at the chequered flag in Shanghai is bemusing. Despite starting the race in P2, Sergio suffered as the team stacked him behind Max for his first tyre change under the safety car. This shuffled Checo back in the pack, yet even with his new rubber he then merely lost ground to Lando Norris in second place.

Perez was 19 seconds behind Verstappen at the chequered flag but this was not the true picture. Max had established a thirteen second lead before the safety car was thrown and so Checo really came home some half a minute behind his team mate whilst driving the same machinery.

Ted Kravitz has now reignited the debate from last season stating in his review of the Chinese GP: “The RB20 is “built” to suit triple World Champion Verstappen’s “on the nose.”

“Sergio had no pace to chase down Lando for P2,” Kravitz said in his Notebook summary feature after the race.

“I don’t think he burnt his tyres out too soon, but it just sort of stayed… maybe it was a dirty air thing, maybe it was a hard tyre thing. But maybe also it was Lando driving brilliantly, which undoubtedly he was.”

Former team mate slams Hamilton in China

 

 

 

“RB20 built around Max Verstappen”

During the feature the camera operator caught Dr. Helmut Marko and Sergio Perez speaking in hushed tones in a hidden corner of the paddock. Kravitz then speculated the Mexican driver was being asked to explain why he was so slow when compared to Max.

“But when you consider that Max finished 13.7 seconds ahead of Lando Norris then I guess it’s a valid question that Helmut, old Helmut, has got for Checo as to why he wasn’t in the same car able to close and overtake the McLaren,” the veteran reporter mused.

“Listen, there is no doubt, to answer the question as to why Max can do what he does with this car and Checo can’t, there is no doubt that the Red Bull RB20 is built around Max Verstappen. That we know.”

Kravitz then erroneously asserts that Perez has had a better start to the season this year despite the car not being to his liking.

F1 CEO cats doubt over Chinese GP future

 

 

 

Checo can’t cope with sensitivity

“But the way this car is designed to be so much on the nose, the slightest steering wheel input and it starts moving at the front and it’s so grippy at the front in the way Max Verstappen loves.

“A driver with a more standard, you might say, driving style of Checo Perez might think what on earth is going on there.”

The Sky reporter likens it to the sensitivity button on a computer mouse. If set to extremely high, the pointer is difficult to place accurately where the users wishes it to be.

“It’s just like that, but in a Formula 1 car. That’s how Max likes the front and Checo obviously doesn’t have the same setup because I think he finds it undriveable.

“That’s why he can’t extract the same performance as Max does with his driving style, and that’s why he finished five seconds behind Lando did Sergio Perez but I say Max Verstappen brilliantly won for 13.7 seconds on Lando Norris.”

FIA members call for legal action against F1

 

 

 

Sainz explains his change of driving style

Checo, like Carlos Sainz with Ferrari, is now in his fourth year with the same team yet appears to repeat the same difficulties year on year. Sainz by way of contrast explains how he had to change his driving style when joining Ferrari.

“I had to change the way I was driving, in a very unnatural way. I had to change to an unnatural way and make it natural: which takes a long time,” Carlos reflected with Autosport.

“I also had to try things with set-up. Most of them were in the wrong direction, and then we had to rediscover the right direction. This takes races. There’s no testing anymore, so you need to test on race weekends.

It would seem strange were Red Bull to retain a driver so at odds with the way their car is designed to be driven and the expectation was this would be the Mexican driver’s last year with the world champions. Yet Sergio weighed in with his unconditional support for Christian Horner at the start of the season whilst others around were questioning whether Horner should leave – and to date his boss refuses to say a bad word against him.

BREAKING: Red Bull offer Sainz a seat

 

 

 

Horner refuses to blame Perez

“We went into the race on a reasonably aggressive two-stop [strategy],” Horner began when asked by Sky Sports whether Sergio’s P3 finish was disappointing.

“The safety car timing probably couldn’t have been worse for us, particularly for Checo [Perez], because we had to stop again to effectively converge on strategy with a Ferrari and the McLaren to the end of the race, and that dropped Checo on track position behind both Lando [Norris] and Charles [Leclerc] and it took him quite a bit of time to get past Charles, which probably took quite a bit out of his tyres.

“So, by the time he had cleared Charles, his tyres probably weren’t in the best of shape to hunt down Lando, who had great pace today. But nonetheless, another very strong weekend from Checo to get that double podium.”

For now it seems as though Sergio Perez place is secure at Red Bull, through with the adaptable Sainz on the market for next year, it must be tempting for the Red Bull bosses to give him a call.

Mercedes face threat of losing James Allison

 

 

 

Wolff and Hamilton clash: “Worse to lose an engineer than a driver

The Mercedes-Lewis Hamilton love affair is most definitely over. After twelve seasons together claiming eight consecutive constructor and six driver titles Hamilton decided the writing was on the wall for his team and his heading overseas to join Ferrari next year.

Yet the manner in which Lewis brought all this about appears to have strained the once indivisible relationship between star driver and team owner/boss… READ MORE