1 week Ago By Thomas Maher
With uncertainty swirling about Sergio Perez’s Red Bull future, Christian Horner says decisions will be made based on the “facts” available. Sergio Perez may have a two-year contract with Red Bull signed, but the Mexican’s future appears far from certain at this point as both Christian Horner and Helmut Marko have suggested changes could be made after the season ends. Speaking to media following the Brazilian Grand Prix, which was won by Max Verstappen from a 17th-place grid slot, Red Bull boss Christian Horner spoke about Perez’s more difficult race.
The Mexican had spun off on the first lap, recovering to 11th place at the end, while Verstappen romped to a dominant win of almost 20 seconds advantage over second-placed Esteban Ocon. “It was a difficult race for Checo [Perez], spinning at the beginning of the race dropped him down,” Horner said. “Today was an opportunity in the Constructors’ to take a big chunk out of both Ferrari and McLaren, and, unfortunately, we’ve not been able to capitalise on that.
“So, you know, obviously that’s frustrating, but we go away and have a look at it and come back, hopefully fighting hard in Vegas.” Having suggested following the Mexican Grand Prix that difficult decisions would have to be made regarding the second Red Bull seat, Horner was pressed on the topic of whether the time has come for those decisions to be made. “Everything in life is subjective, and I think you’ve got to look at the facts,” he said.
“I think then, you know, we’re working hard with Checo. “He had a chassis change this weekend. I thought he drove a good race [in the Sprint, where Perez finished eighth], but today [race day] wasn’t his day.
” Asked whether there was any technical reason to prevent Perez from being able to emulate Verstappen’s season-defining performance from 17th to first, Horner said: “I haven’t sat in the debrief. I haven’t heard his comments, but there was nothing evident to me in the race.” 👉 Inside Red Bull: Christian Horner and the other major players in Red Bull’s hierarchy 👉 Eight times Sergio Perez has been the perfect team-mate for Max Verstappen With Red Bull eager to make decisions based on the facts of Perez’s performances, let’s reflect on some of the realities of his difficult season.
For instance, the eye-opening contrast of their weekends in Brazil – Verstappen scored 31 points in total for the Sprint and Grand Prix. Perez scored a solitary point. In fact, Verstappen’s 31-point score from Brazil requires quite a few weekends from Perez in order to match or beat that tally.
Only by going back as far as Austria, a full 10 race weekends, does Perez’s points tally add up to what Verstappen contributed to Red Bull’s score in a single weekend – he has scored 33 points in total since the Austrian Grand Prix. This means that, in the 10 race weekends since, Verstappen has added an average of 15.6 points per race weekend.
Perez has added 3.3. His season is particularly front-loaded in general.
The first quarter of the championship, up to and including Miami, was particularly strong from Perez as he scored multiple podiums and a worst finish of fourth place. He had scored 103 points at this point, to Verstappen’s 136. This means his first six races contribute just under 70 percent of his entire season’s points tally.
In the 15 race weekends since, he has only added an additional 48 points – 31.7% of his tally. It gets worse when his scores are weighed up as a contribution to Red Bull’s Constructors’ Championship points score.
Having added 151 of Red Bull’s 544 points, this counts as just 27.7 percent of the score – Verstappen thus carrying the weight of 72.3 percent of the scoring.
There is no greater teammate disparity on the grid. Aston Martin’s driver pairing comes close, with Fernando Alonso scoring 62 percent of the team’s points so far this year, but points, in general, have been more difficult to come by for the Silverstone-based squad. By comparison, the Red Bull RB20 is clearly still capable of strong results in Verstappen’s hands, meaning the gap is likely to widen further over the remaining three races.
Taking the averages of the last 10 race weekends and the aforementioned points average scored per weekend, the season would end with Verstappen on 440 points, and Perez on 161. With Red Bull finishing on 601 points, Perez would have contributed just 26.7 percent of the season tally – Verstappen thus scoring 73.
3 percent. Of course, these are just averages. Perez could easily bounce back to being at his best, and make a huge difference to Red Bull’s Constructors’ Championship tally.
But the current facts are that Perez has been unable to provide capable support for Verstappen at Red Bull this season and, while the Dutch driver has been able to hold up his end of things in the Drivers’ Championship, it has cost Red Bull dearly in the Constructors’. If Perez had scored even just half of Verstappen’s predicted points tally of 440 (which may even be conservative), and scored 220 points, the team’s combined score of 660 would paint a far different picture in the final standings – McLaren is currently on 593, and Ferrari on 557. While outright victory might still elude them, the runner-up spot would be reasonably comfortable.
And all that was needed was a driver scoring half of Verstappen’s tally – hardly a huge demand to place on a driver competing for the reigning World Champion squad. Read Next: The Sergio Perez prediction that involves Daniel Ricciardo’s F1 axe.
