Sergio Perez is playing with fire and is running a serious risk of getting burned. The Mexican is about to exhaust the patience of the Red Bull executives, who, it must be said, are not the most magnanimous executives in the Formula 1 world either. With that in mind, if we take into account the previous experience with those who most recently took his place, one can almost think that the Mexican is racing for free. That is what drivers like Pierre Gasly or Alexander Albon, who were ousted in their day by Helmut Marko and Christian Horner, must think. The leaders of the Red Buffalo team demand from their drivers standards of excellence that they themselves are not capable of reaching, as was proven by the murky episode that both of them starred in at the start of this championship. But that is another story. Until there is a cataclysm, the outdated ex-Austrian driver and the presumptuous British manager have the guillotine that has already fallen on others before. Now the issue is hanging over Pérez, who has already been warned of the need for an immediate turning point in his performance if he wants to fulfil the two years of his contract remaining after the renewal announced just a few months ago.
Of the four seasons he has been team-mate of Max Verstappen, this is undoubtedly the worst of all in terms of statistics. Despite the disappearance of the cushion that the energetic car had in the last two years, Verstappen remains comfortably placed at the top of the table, with a 76-point margin over Lando Norris, second. To find Checo you have to look down to seventh place, where he appears with 124 points in his locker, less than half of those his workshop neighbour has (265 points). The Central American is lucky that ‘Mad Max’ has not been able to collect as many points lately as, for example, in 2023, when, at this same point in the film, he had 74 more points.
After a good start to the level that is expected of him, with five podiums in the first six stops of the calendar, in which he collected a total of 103 points, Pérez only took 21 more points in the following seven. A very serious accident on the first lap of the Monaco Grand Prix gave the starting signal for a nosedive that led him to hit rock bottom last Saturday in Hungary, where he crashed into the barriers again during the first timed section, a circumstance that forced him to start 16th on Sunday. It was the second consecutive event in which he failed to get through the qualifying round (Q1). The comeback he made during the race – he finished seventh – is not an argument with enough weight to free him from the scrutiny he is being subjected to this weekend in Belgium, a race that will be decisive for his future according to Red Bull. There are several names, such as Yuki Tsunoda, Daniel Ricciardo and even the young Liam Lawson, who claim to be ready to get into the RB20 if a drastic decision is made. On a historic circuit like Spa, Checo has a good chance of going on holiday a little more relaxed. He will start second, behind Charles Leclerc, after equalling his best starting position of the year (Japan and China) and helped by the ten-place penalty imposed on Verstappen, who used the fifth engine and will start eleventh. Carlos Sainz will start seventh and Fernando Alonso eighth.
Pérez has always been described as a ‘race-oriented’ driver, one of those drivers who gives his best performance on Sundays. What happens is that, with McLaren and Mercedes recovering the ground lost to Red Bull, the grid position has become more important than it had until now. “That is something that has to change. I would say that this [Hungría] “It was Checo’s best race since China – he finished third – and this result should give him confidence. If he had started further up the track, he would have been even more competitive,” said Horner, less direct than Marko, when asked about the roadmap to follow regarding the driver line-up in the medium term. “We are sticking to the approach we had. On Monday after Spa I will fly to Great Britain to discuss with Horner what we will do,” said the Austrian to the microphones of ORF, the television station that holds the broadcasting rights in his country, in a statement that almost sounds more like a threat.
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