Verstappen VS Perez
Verstappen VS Perez
Red Bull looked it’s most vulnerable at the Red Bull Ring in Austria 2 weeks ago. While any other team on the grid would be happy to bag a P2 finish, a team of Red Bull’s stature and hunger to be number 1 would see Austria as a step in the wrong direction towards their championship dreams. So, what does Red Bull have up their sleeves coming to bounce back at the French Grand Prix?
And why has Sergio Perez fallen off Max Verstappen’s pace by a big margin? And does team boss Christian Horner see Mercedes as a dark horse in the championship race? Well, you’re going to have to stick around to find out. But before we get to it, consider subscribing to the channel as we upload 4 videos at the minimum just to keep you updated on the latest happenings in the F1 space. Now that’s out of the way, let’s get to it.
Red Bull’s defeats in Austria and Silverstone marks the teams longest streak without winning a race this season. While many casual fans see this a chink in Red Bull’s armor, Honda F1 boss Masashi Yamamoto, who also works as a consultant for Red Bull still thinks that Red Bull has the more reliable power unit compared to Ferrari, one that he thinks may be the deciding factor in the end. In his words:
“I think [Charles] Leclerc was just faster. However, Max [Verstappen] did a great job holding on to second place and setting the fastest race lap. Ferrari was indeed very strong, but if you look at the blown engine of Carlos Sainz, I think HRC (Honda Racing Corporation) and Red Bull Powertrains is still better if we look at the overall performance and reliability.”
He would also say that while Paul Ricard caters to Red Bull more, that may not be the case in the next race following that which would be Hungary. In his words:
“I think France is more in Red Bull’s favour, so we should go bang there. In Hungary, on the other hand, I have a feeling that Ferrari will win because they have more traction at low and medium speeds. But I think Red Bull will do something to counter that. I want to finish the two races before the summer break well.”
It is a fact by now that Red Bull has been the most aggressive team in terms of introducing new upgrades to their car proven by how dangerously close they got to breaking past the budget cap this season. And with a set of drivers with contrasting driving styles, it is inevitable for the new upgrades to look like it’s favoring one driver over the other.
Sergio Perez had a strong start to this season, getting close as he’s ever been to his teammate, Max Verstappen. Perez also led the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix from pole and won the Monaco Grand Prix as well. It really looked at the time that Perez would give Max a good fight for the drivers’ title. But from the Canadian Grand Prix onwards, Perez has taken a step back and has been less comfortable as the team introduced more and more upgrades to the car. The Mexican driver had said in an interview at the time:
“I haven’t been as comfortable with it [the development of the car] as I was in the beginning, let’s put it that way.”
The new upgrades the team has made to the RB18 has the car have a stronger front end which is in contrast to how the car initially was earlier in the season where it produced a lot more understeer. A setup that favored Perez’s driving style a bit more. This newer setup now favors Verstappen more and this development direction is said to unlock more performance from the RB18.
This makes favoring this development direction more practical and made with the extracting as much pace from the RB18 as they can, rather than making it clear that Verstappen was the number one driver at Red Bull. Red Bull’s Chief Engineer Paul Monaghan would comment on both Perez’s statement, and the development direction the team has taken:
“I haven’t been as comfortable with it [the development of the car] as I was in the beginning, let’s put it that way. Within a fairly constricted set of technical regulations and freedoms, if you find a way to put a bit of pace on, you will often take it if it’s within your financial limitations to apply it. So you then go through a process of your research tools, realization at full size, and then evaluation at full size. And if it looks like we’ve put some pace on the car, typically we will keep it on the basis that all your tools say your car will be faster. Now, it may be that in deploying the tools, it’s been maybe easier for Max to adopt them. Maybe his set-up is suited a bit more than Checo’s. But it’s not as if the car is fixed in terms of its parameters [so] that Checo can’t then revise the set-up to say it’s to his liking again. And it would be foolish of us to not then try and give Checo a method to get more out of it. We’re in the race for both titles and we need both cars ideally ahead of the Ferraris and the Mercedes. So we will do everything we can to put the two of them there.”
While the team has clarified that they’re not showing favoritism in their chosen development direction, Verstappen would still be asked on whether or not he had to do anything about the team’s development direction. To which he would reply with:
“We always try to make the car faster and whatever they bring to the car you have to adapt to that, and that’s certainly what I’ve been doing. I mean, of course, I say what I would like for my car in general, but the upgrades on the car are not specifically designed around me. It’s just more pace.
Team boss Christian Horner would also comment on these allegations about the team favoring Verstappen saying:
“I’m not sure that’s entirely correct. I think the setup is crucial. I think that Checo was very competitive in the race at Silverstone, and I think that he’ll have races that we know that he’ll perform very well at. Certainly, the developments aren’t being driven in one direction, just an overall car performance improvement.”
While internal politics may be an unintended result of the team pushing the car’s performance, Monaghan thinks that a faster car will suit both Perez and Verstappen in the long run. And that it is up to the Red Bull engineers to find the sweet spot for Perez to be able to extract the most out of the car. In Monaghan’s words:
“It should be within our capabilities to find something which is a little bit more to his liking. The balance between the drivers through a season will always ebb and flow. And if you look at it, Checo outqualified Max this year – that hasn’t happened for a while to any of Max’s team-mates. Max doesn’t want to rest on his laurels and neither does Checo and neither are we [doing so]. Our race is within our team, but they have got to remember that they both drive for the same team and our race is against our neighbours, who are both quite happy to see us behind them. So our fight is on many fronts, but one of them I wouldn’t regard as a contest. It’s more our challenge [to manage] and that’s [between] both our drivers and we’ll support them as best we can.”
While the media may be trying to make up a story between the 2 drivers, Perez would make it clear that he isn’t feeling jealous of Max’s success. In Perez’s words:
“I have experienced jealousy from my teammates in the past. Of course you want to win, but if the guy next to you is doing better than you, then you have to accept that and be proud of it. I don’t think many people can handle that well. Between us it doesn’t matter much. If I win or if Max wins then we are always proud of each other.”
Perez has always been team player since his arrival at Red Bull with his efforts to help Max chase down Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton at the finale last season in Abu Dhabi as the shining example to this. Speaking of Mercedes, team boss Christian Horner still does believe that Mercedes is bound to make it 3 way battle for the title this season saying:
“We’ll expect them to be quick in Ricard. They’re showing flashes of being there or thereabouts. The last two races have been pretty decent for them and there’s been no sign I think of any porpoising at all, so they seem to be slowly bringing themselves back into the game. I think they’ll be a contender. They keep consistently scoring points. I’m not sure how far off they are in the constructors’ or drivers’ [championships] at the moment, but you know, sometimes having more cars in play is a good thing.”
And there you guys have it, so what do you guys think? Does Red Bull have an underlying bias in its development direction? Will Perez finally find the sweet spot in his setup to make it hard for Verstappen again? And will Mercedes be a threat to Red Bull and Ferrari? Let us know in the comment section below, and as always don’t forget to like and subscribe to the channel if you haven’t
