Max Verstappen declared Red Bull’s Formula 1 dominance in Barcelona to be over – and won anyway. While the Dutchman continues to make the difference for the world champions, Sergio Perez once again played no role in the tenth race of the season in Spain. After a weak qualifying, the Mexican remained invisible in the midfield on Sunday. He could not finish higher than eighth. This means he achieved the result calculated by the team, but the pressure is slowly building.
“This is probably one of the places where overtaking is the most difficult. You ruin your tires in the dirty air,” said Perez. Due to a grid penalty for an offence in Montreal, he started the Grand Prix from eleventh place instead of eighth. In the first stint he was barely able to make any progress on the soft tires. The team therefore opted for an aggressive strategy. Outside the points, he switched to the soft tires again during his first pit stop on lap 14. This was followed by two more pit stops with stints on medium and soft.
In the final phase, he overtook the two Alpine drivers with the three-stop strategy and was classified eighth, one minute behind race winner Max Verstappen. “I’m disappointed, but where we started from was pretty much the maximum we could achieve. I had to fight hard for these points. The race wasn’t as clear-cut for us as we had imagined. I had a bit of a hard time,” said the 34-year-old.
In fact, team boss Christian Horner was not dissatisfied with the performance. “Our simulations before the race said that P8 from P11 on the grid is the optimum. He achieved that today,” said the Briton. In direct comparison to the performance of the team and Verstappen, however, that is still not enough. “The team is continuing to work at a high level, we are still delivering the pit stops with 1.7 seconds, the strategy is right. And Max has once again demonstrated why he is the world champion. He delivers in the key scenes.”
Red Bull needs peak Perez instead of bankrupt Perez
In the constructors’ championship, Red Bull extended its lead once again. McLaren lost four points, Ferrari eleven. With 14 races still to go and a cushion of 60 points, Horner would be happy if Perez regained his form. “We need Checo back up there, and he knows that, and the team knows that too,” says the Briton.
In Barcelona, George Russell was the buffer to give Red Bull a free hand in terms of tactics with Verstappen. In another scenario, however, the second driver in the leading group would be an advantage. “If he drives at the end of the top eight, you lose strategic options if you want to split and all that kind of thing. In the first four or five races he was fantastic and so we need him again,” says Horner.
Perez has already gone through various dips in form in the past, triggered by a series of failures. Horner recognizes a similar pattern this time: “I think he had a few difficult races. Things weren’t going his way and he’s a driver who lives off his confidence,” explains the 50-year-old. He hopes that Barcelona has helped his driver’s mindset: “I think and hope that this race has given him a little more confidence and that he can take that into the next race weekends, which will be very important for him.”