Speculation over Sergio Perez’s future at Red Bull was recently turbocharged following his very public statements about “problems” with his RB19 following the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
Perez is out of contract at the end of next year, and with no love lost between him, his teammate, and of equal importance, his teammate’s dad, the diminutive Mexican may be watching from the stands in 2024.
What I meant was…
It’s not the first time “Checo” has only opened his mouth to change feet. It seems he does not possess the filter that most number two Formula 1 drivers have. Consequently, Red Bull’s media team are now casting him as a chatbot, not the AI computer type, of course, but the kind that talks out of their ass.
Perez joined Red Bull in December 2021. No one really talked about it, but everyone knew it was a wingman signing, not a joint number one. The thirty-three-year-old, it was presumed, had the mental toughness and maturity to withstand the merciless intimidation of Max Verstappen, something the previous two younger incumbents couldn’t.
His job was to take over the reins in his absence and mop up the points after him for the Constructors’ Championship. However, a win in Monaco last year left him within fifteen points of his Dutch teammate. This, among other things, went to his head; and believing his own PR, he began waxing lyrical about his potential Championship challenge!
And then the alarm clock went off…
Winning the Championship was never going to be a waking thing as long as Max was in the same car. Whilst “Checo” can be considered to sit in the upper echelons of the current F1 grid, he is not at Max’s altitude. Of course, Christian Horner and Co did nothing at the time to deflate the Mexican’s balloon, and quite rightly. After struggling initially, Perez was now regularly bringing home the points bacon. No need to disavow him of his ephemeral dream.
There are three things you should never do as a racing driver…
In life, it is best not to telegraph your plans to competitors. This goes double for F1! If Perez actually thought he had a shot, he should have kept his own council. Instead, he riled his teammate, who clearly had an “only one number one in the team” clause in his contract, something Max’s father was fast out of the box to make clear by publicly coming from the shoulder to the Press about where Red Bull’s driver priorities needed to be, so much so that it required the “good doctor” to pull on the choker chain, tamp down the fire, and bring some calm and perspective to the matter.
You would have thought Perez had learnt his lesson from all of this, especially after Brazil in 2022! However, Jeddah 2023 proved he hadn’t. Once again, he began chatbotting, talking up his chances of lifting the F1 Drivers Title. Then he tried to qualify down under…
Far from looking like an FWC, he struggled with his car throughout Free Practice, eventually beaching it in Q1 and consigning himself to the back of the grid. His response to this after the race was maligning the RB19; quite a call when you look at what his teammate did with it at the other end of the field.
Its not me, it’s you…
The “good doctor” quickly responded, saying there was “nothing wrong” with the car and, by inference, that Sergio may find the solution to his problems by looking in the mirror. It’s here that I disagree though. “Wrong” is a relative term. Sure, the car functioned fine, but were the settings the same as Max’s? I’m talking drive train here because the rest is generally a personal thing. The reason I question this was the apparent disparity in performance between the two cars in the DRS zone between Turns 9 and 10.
Is there some jiggery-pokery going on in the pit box?
At the second restart, as soon as DRS opened, Max sailed past Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes (technically, the second fastest car on track) like he was looking for a parking space. He (Max) then pulled a massive two-second gap on Hamilton in one sector! This was not a driver-created result but one purely down to the car and PU. Perez never seemed to enjoy the same DRS advantage throughout the race. If it hadn’t been for multiple re-starts and Safety Cars compressing the grid, it is unlikely he would have finished as high as sixth! I’m sure the cars were the same, but the drivetrain map… Nah, not convinced of that one.
The sub is warming up…
Bottomline, “Checo” needs to remember two things. Firstly, as a number two, winning the Driver’s Title is a love that should not be spoken of. Secondly, he’s out of contract at the end of next season, and there’s a driver out there who looks like he could fill his shoes without all the baggage. Nico Hulkenberg anyone? “Super sub” is more than living up to his name at Haas and could be a very attractive Red Bull replacement!