The Belgian Grand Prix brought mixed feelings into the Red Bull Racing team and definitely did not ease the rumours regarding Sergio “Checo” Perez, who’s seat and future in Formula 1 seems to be uncertain right now.
Even though the Mexican driver looked hopeful after qualifying third on Saturday that turned into P2 because of Verstappen’s penalty, he didn’t stay at the front for long and finished the Sunday race in quite disappointing P8, later promoted to P7 after the disqualification of George Russell. Not only that, but Perez also ended up three places behind his own teammate Max Verstappen, who started the race 11th on the grid.
In the pre-race predictions, Horner had hoped the Mexican would be on the podium.
“Starting on the front row, our objective really was, pre-race, we felt that 3rd and 5th would be achievable,” admitted Christian Horner, the team principal of Red Bull Racing. “We achieved the 5th [4th after Russell’s disqualification], but we didn’t achieve the 3rd. So we obviously need to go through the data to understand where his [Checo’s] loss of pace was.
“I think that based on his starting position, we didn’t envisage finishing 8th from 2nd on the grid,” Horner noted.
The start of the season looked very promising for Perez, who finished on the podium four times out of the first five races.
However, after two consecutive DNFs in Monaco and Canada, things completely turned around for the Mexican driver and from then on he struggles not only in qualifying, but also the races — especially compared to Verstappen in the same car.
This weekend in Spa, we’ve seen both sides of Pérez — the one that did a good job in qualifying, and then the other that totally threw the potential podium out of the window and finished in P8, later promoted to P7.
“Look, Checo’s had a tough run over the last few races, and what’s so confusing for us is that the season started so well for him and then it tailed off.
“He did a great job, a super job in qualifying [on Saturday]. Obviously, we need to go through and understand the issues in the race. We’ve got the time to do that and analyse that and work with him,” Horner referred to the summer break in which the team and Pérez himself will have a lot to look at.
In the question of Pérez’s future, things seem to still be unclear and in the process of discussions. Earlier, Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s adviser, suggested that there is to be a meeting to talk about the Mexican driver and his seat.
“Things are always… we’re constantly analysing, constantly looking at things. We’ve got a meeting [on Monday], but it’s not just about Checo, we have other topics on the agenda as well, which we always do going into the summer break.”
When the 34-year-old’s contract was renewed earlier this year, one of the rumored reasons behind this was Verstappen’s happiness with his current teammate and the overall dynamics between the two Red Bull drivers. The relationships are always something to be taken into consideration, but how important is it in this case?
“Of course, you take so many things into consideration, but there’s been a great partnership between the two of them. Checo is a great team player, and he’s a massive team player, that’s why he was selected, that’s why we took him at the end of 2020 to put alongside Max,” Horner revealed.
“He’s won six or seven races for us, second in the World Championship last year, goodness knows how many podiums… it’s been the most successful combination we’ve ever had as a driver pairing.
“What’s frustrating for everybody is Checo struggling, because nobody wants to see him struggle, everybody wants to see him succeed. The team has been, and is, right behind him. Everybody wants to see him succeed, because it hurts seeing him in the situation that he is.”
These factors just make the possible decision of a driver’s swap or signing someone else for next year even more difficult. In Hungary last weekend, Pérez showed excellent pace, coming through from P16 to P7, beating George Russell on merit.
As the Red Bull boss said: “Nobody wants to make that decision.
“Obviously you guys talk about it every day, but in the team, we want to get him going, we want to understand, give him a kind…
“You see glimpses — his race pace last weekend was strong, he had the fourth best race pace in Budapest, but he had a difficult Saturday with a crash in Quali. He did a good job [on Saturday], to put five hundredths off Charles on a scrub set of tyres, and put it on the front row, it was a tremendous effort. [On Sunday] his race faded.”
Asked about how long they are willing to give Perez to turn it around and if it could be the whole season, Horner replied: “I think that he’s as acutely aware as anybody that we need both cars performing, which is what we had at the beginning of the year, and that’s where we need to get back to.”
Although Horner insists the team is determined to do anything to help Perez get back to the top, there are admittedly many alternatives in the Red Bull squad in the short and long-term — and the team principal himself named some of them.
“Yeah, I mean, we’ve got issues [on Sunday], but you’ve got to have solutions for tomorrow as well, and I think we’ve got a tremendous pool of talent. We’ve got experience, we’ve got youth, we’ve got Liam [Lawson] in the wings, we’ve got [Isack] Hadjar doing a super job in F2, we’ve got Arvid Lindblad, who I think is a really exciting talent in F3… so yeah, I think we’ve got some great talent in our squad.”
The experience Horner mentions could also very well be the Daniel Ricciardo who has a long history with the Red Bull family and even as Verstappen’s teammate in that second seat. Currently driving for VCARB, Red Bull’s sister team, he’s also considered as one of the most likely options to replace Perez if that was to happen.
The Australian called these last two races the most important of his season, maybe his entire career, hinting that he could really be in contention for that desired seat alongside Verstappen.
The 35-year-old looked strong in Hungary and Spa, although he only scored a single point as the strategy in Budapest was a mess.
“I think he’s done alright,” Horner commented on Ricciardo’s recent results. “I haven’t looked at the race plot, I only saw the end result, that he was 11th [later promoted to 10th], and starting on the soft tyre, he’s obviously driven a good race.”
However, the team principal still insists that the team’s priorities are set straight on the Mexican driver: “Look, we’re in a great position where we’ve got all the info, and the priority is to support Checo and to understand what he needs. We all want him to turn it around, we all want to see him deliver.”
