From the outside Sergio Perez appears to be ticking all the boxes at Red Bull, however he has to raise his game in qualifying to provide proper support for the team's ace Max Verstappen if he is going to satisfy his new paymasters.
Whether he likes it or not that why the Mexican veteran is there, to play a similar role to Valtteri Bottas at Mercedes who has Lewis Hamilton's back. In fact, Perez would be wise to follow the Finn's example because the word in the paddock is that a certain Helmut Marko is not terribly impressed with their charge at this point.
Stats versus Vwerstappen show that Perez is lacking on Saturdays:
- Bahrain - Perez 11th; Verstappen 1st; Gap seven-tenths.
- Imola - Perez 2nd; Verstappen 3rd. Gap 0.035s.
- Portimao - Perez 4th; Verstappen 3rd; Gap a tenth and a half.
- Barcelona - Perez 8th; Verstappen 2nd; Gap nine-tenths.
- Monaco - Perez 9th; Verstappen 2nd; Gap a quarter of second.
Perez found the sweet spot in the Red Bull RB16B at Imola and Portimao, but thereafter he was woefully down on Verstappen who, one could argue raised the bar as Hamilton does when he is troubled by the sister car.
Nevertheless, Perez was happy after his afternoon of damage limitation in Monaco, saying so in the team preview of this weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix: "I’m happy that in the end, we managed to have a good result, especially given where we qualified after a poor Saturday.
It was very tough mentally. As always, Monaco is just hard to keep the car out of the walls whilst being on the limit. Especially you need to know when to push and when not to, that is the key!
"The result on Sunday is a big boost for the Team and we’re definitely looking forwards to keeping it up there, but we cannot forget that it’s only race five of the season and there’s still a very long way to go."
But time waits for no one in a big team like Red Bull and Marko, who is obviously has been keeping tabs on the driver and told F1Sport: “Sergio Perez will be the determining factor in the fight for the world title.
"So far the performance in qualifying has failed. For example, in Barcelona had he managed to find himself closer to Bottas, I don't think Mercedes would have risked making a double pit stop with Hamilton. This is our biggest handicap at the moment."
Harsh words from Marko, but that is the reality check Perez needs to take his A-Game at a race where he has celebrated a podium in the past: "I’m really looking forward to Baku. I hope we can put a strong qualifying together because we’ve proved that our race pace is right up there with the best.
"We just have to improve our Saturdays and then we should be fine," declared the 31-year-old.
Verstappen and Red Bull are in the unfamiliar territory of leading the championship after five rounds for the first time in the turbo-hybrid era they head to a race topping both the drivers' and constructors' standings.
But for Perez it will be business as usual: "It doesn’t change anything. We have to stay realistic and know that it’s race five of the season.
"It doesn’t matter where we are now, it only matters where we end up at the end of the season in Abu Dhabi. We need to keep our heads down and continue working as hard as we have been doing in the past months." added Perez who lies fifth in the championship, but has scored less than half the points Verstappen has in the other Red Bull.
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