In the second part of Pit Debrief‘s exclusive interview with former F1 engineer Marco Schüpbach, we discussed his two years working as race engineer to Sergio Pérez, and why he struggled so much against Max Verstappen. He was the Mexican’s first race engineer in the sport.
After working as a performance engineer for Robert Kubica, Schüpbach was promoted to the race engineer position. With Sergio Pérez coming up from GP2 (now F2), the pair worked together at Sauber in 2011 and 2012.
Heartbreak for Sergio Pérez following a great F1 debut
On his F1 debut at the 2011 Australian Grand Prix, Pérez finished a very strong P7. However, both he and Sauber teammate Kamui Kobayashi got disqualified after the race as there was a technical infringement involving the uppermost element of the rear wing.
Instead of a double points finish, Sauber was left to rue their mistake. Schüpbach explained how gutted the team felt about the disqualifications of Pérez and Kobayashi.
“[I] can’t tell you how bad we all felt. And there was nothing we could do about it. It was a simple design mistake and did not really bring performance.
“We were caught by total surprise because this was not usually something that was checked at the weighbridge, there was no gauge for it at the FIA.”
After scoring 44 points and finishing P7 in the standings in 2011, Sauber made a big step the following season.
Pérez comes agonisingly close to maiden F1 win
Following a P8 finish at Albert Park in Melbourne to start off a truly classic F1 season, Sauber and Sergio Pérez almost pulled off a stunning win at round 2 in mixed conditions in Malaysia as he finished 2nd.
Starting P10, Sauber made a brilliant call to put full wets on at the end of lap 1, valuting Pérez up to P3 when the red flag came out 8 laps later. He was behind the two McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button at this point.
Marco Schüpbach explained the first great call they made with Sergio Pérez.
“We qualified P10. The race started on inters and the start was not very good. We made a ballsy call to go to the full wet a few seconds before the monsoon came, which brought us P3 when the race was red flagged. We thought, ‘how on earth could we manage to stay there’?
Conservativism
When switching to inters, and then dry tyres, Sauber decided to be conservative, allowing Fernando Alonso of Ferrari to get the jump on both occasions. As McLaren imploded due to pit stop blunders and a driving mistake from Button, it became a battle for the win between Alonso and Pérez.
During both stints, the gap was over 7s at one stage. However, Pérez and the C31 held a pace advantage and clawed the gap back in both stints.
*That* radio message
As the Mexican driver caught Alonso in the dry tyre stint, he went off at turn 14 on lap 50. A radio message was played just before that, with Schüpbach telling him, “Checo, be careful, we need this position, we need this position”.
Addressing that radio call, Schüpbach explained he gave Pérez that message a couple of laps before he made his costly error. As F1 radio messages started to become a more frequent part of the broadcasting coverage in the 2010s, there tended to be some quite long delays. It led to the usual conspiracy theories from some.
Nonetheless, delivering that message was something that caused internal turmoil for the Swiss engineer.
“It was a team call. My inner self wanted to ignore it when I got it, of course.
“Of course we should have been more confident, but we did not know yet how good our car was. Melbourne is not a good reference, so Sepang was really going to be our first performance data point.
“I think given the circumstances it was correct to stay conservative and we carried out the race like this, stopped always one lap after Fernando. We took some heat for that call.
“One must understand that usually radio calls get broadcasted late, so while in reality I made the call 2-3 laps before Checo made the mistake, it was of course shown on TV right when Checo nearly beached it in the gravel trap, and of course that made us look stupid.
“The mistake was a driving mistake, it had nothing to do with the call, and the call had nothing to do with Ferrari.
“Checo drove a very good race that day, and he nearly won it for us. There was plenty of reason to be happy.”
Romain Grosjean ruins Sauber’s golden chance at Spa
At the 2012 Belgian Grand Prix, Sauber had Kobayashi on the front row, with Sergio Pérez on the second row. A shot at victory and potentially even a double podium finish was on because of their strong race pace at many tracks that year.
However, it all went wrong heading into turn 1. A reckless Grosjean chopped across Lewis Hamilton. The pair made contact, sending the Lotus driver airborne and over Fernando Alonso.
Unfortunately for the Saubers, the now seven-time World Champion hit Pérez, both completely innocent bystanders. Kobayashi was also taken out by Grosjean as he went over the rear wing of the Japanese driver. A race ban was handed out to the French driver who was a serial offender that season.
Pastor Maldonado also proves to be a problem
As for Pastor Maldonado, he deliberately hit Sergio Pérez near the end of FP3 at the Monaco GP, leading to a crash in Q1 in the Swimming Pool section for the Mexican that was not his fault, as Marco Schüpbach explains.
The Williams driver also took Pérez out of the British GP later that year. While Grosjean and Maldonado had blistering speed, they made far too many mistakes in wheel-to-wheel combat, costing Sauber and others points in the process.
“In Spa I was convinced we could fight for the win on own merit with both Kamui and Checo, we really had good long run pace.
“Generally, Grosjean and Maldonado cost us a lot of points that year. For instance, Checo’s crash in Monaco Q1 was caused by an invisibly damaged suspension member. The damage occurred in a collision caused by Pastor [Maldonado] during the box-lap of FP3, after the pair took the flag.
“We could have had so many more points that season if these two used their brains sometimes! They cost us a lot more than just missing out on that possible victory.”
Further podiums in 2012 for Sergio Pérez as Marco Schüpbach explains his strengths
The best version of Sergio Pérez came on rear limited circuits throughout his career, with Baku an obvious example. Rear limited tracks are ones comprising low speed corners and chicanes, with traction zones as well. This really tested the drivers on looking after their rear tyres.
In the early years of the Pirelli era when they joined the sport in 2011, tyre degradation was generally quite high. This allowed Sauber to use the strengths of the Mexican driver.
Having started outside the top 10 at the Canadian (P15) and the Italian (P13) Grands Prix, the six-time race winner worked his way through to P3 and P2 in those races. Great pace, tyre management and cracking overtakes all led to big results.
“He was very good at protecting the rear tyres and this was key to his podiums in Montreal and Monza.
“We knew that on rear limited tracks we could go out of window with the strategy with him and these were the races where he really shone.
“On the other hand, front protection was not his strength.”
Why the Red Bull stint for Sergio Pérez went so wrong
Although Sergio Pérez won five races during his four seasons at Red Bull Racing, he was comprehensively outperformed by Max Verstappen.
In 2021, 2023 and 2024, the gaps between them were over 200 points in the championship. While Sergio Pérez finished P2 in the standings two years ago, he was 295 points behind Max Verstappen when the chequered flag fell on the season in Abu Dhabi.
Last year, seven spots and 285 points separated them as Max Verstappen took out his fourth consecutive F1 Drivers’ Championship. Red Bull decided that was enough and parted ways with the Mexican.
From his experience of working with Sergio Pérez, Marco Schüpbach gave insight on what might have caused the 35-year-old’s troubles against the phenomenal Dutch driver.
While Max Verstappen likes a very sharp front end and can live with a loose rear, Pérez likes to have a bit of understeer in the car. The Red Bull cars very much went against his driving style.
Sergio Pérez would go testing different set-ups to try and get closer to Max Verstappen. It resulted in even harder weekends on many occasions as the car was so hard to drive for him.
“It is suboptimal to change a fundamental car characteristic by set-up, usually this brings you out of the sweet spot in terms of operation envelope, which in turn makes you always lose a little performance.
“Yes, Checo liked understeer and that was contributing to him being so good at nursing the rear tyres. I know that Max [Verstappen] is a little different, and that can explain a lot.
“If you have to fight an otherworldly teammate, you need to be at one with the car. I believe Checo often wasn’t.”
Why a difficult Red Bull stint should not erase the great career he had
Between 2011-2020, Sergio Pérez was consistently seen as one of the top drivers in midfield machinery. He superbly won the Sakhir GP in 2020 after dropping to the back of the field on the opening lap in his penultimate event at Racing Point.
The Mexican was also extremely competitive against Kamui Kobayashi, Nico Hülkenberg and Esteban Ocon. Pérez often had the edge in race pace, and he fared pretty okay against Jenson Button at McLaren, too.
Marco Schüpbach was keen to point out all the great success Sergio Pérez had. His spell at Red Bull Racing should not completely define his career. The driver from Mexico had a 13-year spell to be proud of. 2025 marks the first time since 2010 that he will not be on the grid.
“He would, should the opportunity arise [to return to F1], surely not be the worst driver on the grid.
“However, he had a fantastic career, and to me it’s a bit sad to see that his reputation suffered so much in the last two years of his career against one of the all-time greats [in Max Verstappen].
“People need to understand how good he was with us [Sauber] and the team [Force India/Racing Point] formerly known as Jordan.”
