After a three-week break, Formula 1 will return on the weekend of August 23-25 with the 2024 Dutch Formula 1 Grand Prix, an event where Sergio Perez will try to prove why the Red Bull team decided to extend his contract rather than put one of its youngsters in the car. However, the Mexican driver will not have his usual battle partner on the other end of the radio, the well-known Hugh Bird.
The Guadalajara driver’s race engineer has asked the team for paternity leave, although it seems he will be present at the Zandvoort circuit to guide his replacement on the radio, Richard Wood, who has been the Milton Keynes team’s performance engineer so far this season.
It looks like Hugh Bird will be out for at least four Grands Prix, which means he will return to Sergio Perez’s radio station around the time of the United States Grand Prix, which will be held at the Austin circuit in late October. Therefore, his replacement will be the voice that will handle the duties that the Mexican will be carrying out in the meantime.
Sergio Pérez, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
Before returning from paternity leave, Hugh Bird will see his driver face some tough races, but he knows what it means to win and stand on the podium, having finished second twice in the Italian Grand Prix, in 2012 and 2023, as well as winning the Azerbaijan Grand Prix twice, in 2021 and 2023, and finishing in the top three on two other occasions. Add to that another win in the 2022 Singapore Grand Prix, and half of his Formula 1 victories have come on circuits where he won’t have his usual radio reference.
When the Briton returns, Sergio Perez is looking at a hectic end to the season, with six more races to go, on tracks where he has not been particularly good: he has just two podiums under his belt at his home race in Mexico City and one each at the United States Grand Prix, Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi, for a total of five on his list of honours at these tracks.
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