Most folk in the world of Formula One expected Red Bull Racing to ditch Sergio Perez come the annual summer break this August. Yet Checo retained the favour of the Red Bull management who argued the upcoming circuits in Baku and Singapore were specialist venues for their Mexican driver who has won there on previous occasions.
At the Dutch Grand Prix following F1’s return from its sojourn, Sky Germany asked Dr. Helmut Marko why the decision had been made to retain Perez. “The main problem with Perez was the lack of consistency,” explained Marko. “Speed was present in almost all sessions or parts of the race, and we analysed the upcoming tracks, which are tracks where he has been fast in the past.”
The comments are a fairly standard disclaimer used to defend Sergio, but Marko’s surprise next revelation went mostly unreported in the F1 media. “There was also an issue with his engineering team, which might also have affected his performance,” added the Red Bull advisor although no explanation was given as to how that may have affected Checo’s pace.
Perez admits “terrible season”
Coming into his home race weekend, Perez admitted during the FIA sanctioned press conference on Thursday that, “I know I’ve had a terrible season. It started really well, but it’s been really, really difficult.” Sergio has not finished higher than sixth place over the last thirteen race weekends and over the four races post the summer break which Red Bull claimed would better suit their number two driver, Checo managed a DNF in Baku and just nineteen points across the other three.
Christian Horner has been resolute in his backing of Perez, although the narrative has changed somewhat since Checo’s Baku crash cost him fifteen points and McLaren have taken the lead in the F1 constructors’ title race. Since then the Red Bull boss has spoken of the need for both Red Bull cars to be closer together in terms of performance.
Yet once again come qualifying at the Autodromo Romanos Rodriguez, Sergio was out of sorts come the Saturday afternoon. He along with Oscar Piastri both made surprise early exits in Q1, now the sixth time this year Checo has failed to make it out of the bottom five.
Checo complained after the session that his car had serious handling issues which the team are considering addressing in parc ferme and starting Perez from the pit lane.
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“The problem is that we are also very tight on parts that we have available. We [I] don’t have the spec of floor that we would like to go on to. I don’t know, we will discuss it for sure with the team,” Perez revealed after the session.
“I’ve been struggling quite a bit with braking. Every time I try to attack the braking, I just put too much energy through the tyres and that makes it very tricky for me to stop the car,” reported the Mexican.
“It’s been there for the last three races where I cannot stop the car. I’m having to modulate my braking quite a lot and that’s something we can see in the data, but we are not able to fix it at the moment. It’s mainly on the straight line I cannot stop the car. I just slide too much and given that it’s all surface sensitivity here, it makes it a lot harder.”
It now appears Sergio’s Mexican fans are rounding on Red Bull for failing to give him the same components as his team mate and for failing to diagnose the issue with Checo’s RB20. Much of this will stem from Marko’s comments which previously blamed Perez’s engineering crew for his lacklustre performances.
Horner defends Perez engineer
Christian Horner now finds it necessary to defend the Perez team of engineers in particular his race engineer, Hugh Bird who has been called out by the fans in Mexico. The Red Bull boss hits back at what he describes as ‘armchair experts’ negativity in the modern world of Formula One.
“When you put yourself out there as a race engineer and you’re the voice speaking to the driver, in today’s world of digital media, everybody has an opinion,” Horner said in the FIA press conference for team bosses. “Everybody has their own view on things, and I think he does a super job.
“He’s a really bright guy. He’s grown up in the team. He’s out there giving his best for his driver, for his team and I think it’s very harsh for people to judge and criticise from the outside when they have about 1% of the facts of what he’s actually dealing with.”
Hugh Bird joined the Red Bull Racing team in 2012 and has been Sergio’s race engineer since Red Bull rescued the Mexican’s F1 career in 2001. Bird recently was briefly replaced by Richard Woody as interim race engineer for Checo while the full time voice in his ear was on paternity leave.
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Sergio fared no better under Bird’s temporary replacement. Christian Horner concludes: “The great thing about opening up everything in Formula 1 is the access that we now give – the downside is the amount of armchair specialists and experts that we get that it opens up to.”
Sergio spoke of the relationship between himself and Bird last year to f1.com where he described the relationship as “bullet proof.”
“I’ve seen it before with Hugh, we have a bad day and we learn from it,” Checo explained. “But straight away we are already thinking how we are going to come out of it, and that’s something great to have in our relationship because we never lose faith in each other.
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“We are here together, and we are always looking forward to the next target, and I think that’s something that makes us very bulletproof.”
Sergio will need to speak out in support of Bird for the issue to die down, and the thought that Red Bull would nobble one of their drivers at the cost of a seventh team championship, is utterly ludicrous and needs no right of reply.
Like Daniel Ricciardo before him it appears Perez is amongst a number of the more experienced drivers who have struggled to come to terms with the handling of the new ground effect cars. Lewis Hamilton once credited as the master of the one lap in qualifying is 15-5 down to his team mate George Russell this year after another miserable qualifying in Mexico, will start in sixth almost three quarters of a second behind pole sitter Carlos Sainz.
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Liam Lawson looks a shoe in for a full time Formula One drive in 2025, though as yet Dr. Helmut Marko merely admits to the New Zealander being “evaluated” alongside Yuki Tsunoda.
Having debuted in F1 for five race weekends last season for the injured Daniel Ricciardo, Lawson has been given the Australian’s seat at RB for the final six races of this year.
His first outing in COTA saw Liam persuade the team to allow him to employ a one stop strategy during the USGP which saw him finish ahead of his disgruntled team mate in P9. Tsunoda had been penalised for running Alex Albon off track, appeared furious over team radio when after his second stop the Japanese driver returned to the track but behind Lawson… READ MORE
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It seems to me that the RedBull car set-up suited Checo at the beginning of the season and it was changed to suit Max only so Checo can’t do anything about that