Marko: Perez is following the set-up of Verstappen

While he may not have won any races so far in the 2024 Formula 1 season, Perez has been right up there with his teammate, finishing behind him in a one-two formation for Red Bull in three of the first four races contested this year.

The Australian GP was an exception as Verstappen retired with a faulty brake and Perez finished fifth after being slapped with a grid penalty for impeding as well suffering from car damage which hampered his race, but in addition to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the Japanese GP last weekend was the latest one-two finish for the energy drinks squad.

Perez qualified just 0.066s behind polesitter Verstappen and during the race recovered from an early undercut by McLaren's Lando Norris and fought his way back to second.

Reflecting on Perez's weekend at Suzuka, Marko told the media: "Sergio is following the set-up [of Max] and that is the quickest set-up anyway.

"That is what really matters and what is important. You can’t beat Max by having a different set-up. You can’t beat Max anyway, so that’s it," he added.

Perez used to talk big about fighting Verstappen for the Championship in 2022 and 2023, which ended up backfiring, but Marko confirmed the number 2 driver within the Red Bull Racing camp has a new mentality now.

He said: "He [Perez] now thinks ‘I just have to be as good as possible myself with this car’. His mindset has changed.

"You can also see it in these first races: he collected second places, one race he had some problems, but also in qualifying he was very near to Max. He is much closer than last year. It was important here because his race here last year was a disaster, so this is much better," the Austrian explained.

Perez is out of contract at the end of this season, but if he keeps performing in the manner he has so far, there is a big chance he can retain his seat, as he is currently doing exactly what Red Bull want of him, just finish second behind Verstappen.

But the drivers' market has gone into a frenzy ever since Lewis Hamilton announced he will be leaving Mercedes for Ferrari in 2025, leaving Carlos Sainz without a drive, the latter in the form of his life right now delivering the perfect audition for a top F1 seat next year.

While half the drivers on the grid or so are out of contracts in 2025, Fernando Alonso is another big name who is a free agent at the end of this season, not to mention that the whole situations is hanging on Verstappen's decision following the Christian Horner saga with a female employee and the power struggle within the team involving Jos Verstappen threatening that his son would leave, not to mention Marko himself who was also part - he was briefly investigated for allegedly leaking Horner's WhatsApp messages.

And while the waters seem to be calm now, nothing can be ruled out in F1 with a very silly "Silly Season" awaiting us as Mercedes look to replace Hamilton while Audi who now own 100% of Sauber are also tipped as a major player in the drivers' market, Sainz strongly linked to them.

Marko said: "The driver market has exploded in April. Normally no one talks in April. It is ridiculous, but we won’t jump into this game ourselves.

"We will wait and see and only then make the best choice later on. I don’t know what is going on. I have heard that Audi is making pressure, but it is a little bit strange for a newcomer to make pressure on the driver market.

"At least until we have a clear picture about what is best for Red Bull Racing," he added when asked about a timeline for Red Bull's decision.

A contender to a Red Bull seat might be Yuki Tsunoda, the Japanese RB driver on strong form since the start of the 2024 F1 season, but Marko insists it is still early to decide whether he is up to the task.

"It’s only four races now," he said when asked about Tsunoda's chances of getting a promotion into Red Bull Racing.

"Tsunoda for sure has improved a lot. He has his best season and was three times in Q3 already. He doesn’t make mistakes anymore and today his overtaking was incredible.

"In front of all the Japanese fans he stayed calm, didn’t do anything stupid and was fast. So let’s see how it keeps going," Marko concluded.

(Reporting by Agnes Carlier from Suzuka)