F1 | Waché reveals Red Bull’s difficulties in helping Perez

For a year and a half now, with the exception of a few sporadic flashes, Sergio Perez’s performances have been in free fall. A few days ago, the Mexican was reconfirmed after a post-Belgian Grand Prix meeting where the Red Bull top brass understood how much the cons would outweigh the pros if the Mexican had been sidelined. But these cons would all have been economic minuses, certainly not performance-related.

An unedifying situation for Sergio, who was thus confirmed by Red Bull only for issues that go beyond his talent and his skills on the track. The team, however, will continue to have every interest in finding a key that can help him find the form of his best days, the one he often shows off in the first races of the year only to then lose it inexorably with the arrival of spring.

In an interview with Motorsport.com, Red Bull Racing technical director Pierre Waché tried to explain the difficulties the team is having in finding the right compromise to help Perez return to competitiveness.

“The goal is always to make the cars faster, even if the drivers are not comfortable with them. We tried to improve the aerodynamic and mechanical balance by introducing new features in Hungary,” said the 49-year-old Auchel native.

“When the car is enjoyable to drive we have seen that Max goes fast and Checo is also closer to him. When the difficulties are greater, however, the gap between the two arises more, because Max is able to live better with some problems”.

Waché then went into more depth on the issues surrounding Perez’s problems. The team has been working for some time with simulations to try to replicate what is wrong on the track and, consequently, work on potential solutions to then pass on to those who have to do the set-up on the track.

However, the simulations, however advanced, still do not allow to perfectly replicate some behaviors of the car and tires in certain conditions. This is why in Milton Keynes they seem to still be at sea.

“To understand what Checo is struggling with, we try to see some trends, but it’s very difficult to highlight them because he was struggling last year too. So it’s difficult for us to identify them.”

“The main problem we have is that we are trying to reproduce the car and all these things in the simulations, but that doesn’t mean that it simulates exactly what the car does in all conditions. Also the interaction with the tyres is very difficult to reproduce, even if we do our best. Improving these areas is an important part of our process.”

“We want to have the fastest car, of course, but we also want it to be usable by the drivers. That’s always the main goal. If we make the car faster so that Checo can use it, it means that both drivers will be able to get the most out of it.”

“Even though Max and Checo have different needs or preferences, the requirements of the car are still very similar. It’s basically the same. Of course there can be differences in driving style, but we won’t use the development of the car for that. That’s why we’ll work on the set-up.”