Five times in a row, Sergio Perez has missed the qualifying final. Regarding the stat being a 16-year-low, Max Verstappen also made an embarrassing statement to his teammate…
Ten races into this year’s championship, there is still a real chance that Red Bull will be the first team in Formula 1 history to finish the season undefeated. The team took its 11th consecutive victory at the British Grand Prix last Sunday, but rather than Red Bull’s overwhelming dominance, it’s still more accurate to mention Max Verstappen’s overwhelming dominance.
While the reigning Dutch champions took their sixth consecutive victory, Sergio Perez had a different run: for the fifth time in a row, he was unable to reach the third quarter stage of the playoffs with Red Bull.
Perez: I’m not interested in speculation about my future
While Red Bull assured him of their support, Sergio Perez was no less concerned about rumors about him and his future.
Perez’s best start since Monaco was 11th. In the last five races he has started from the following positions: 20th, 11th, 12th, 15th, 15th. Out of ten races so far he has only started four times from inside the top ten, he had two poles, one second and third starting grid and 20th in Australia.
His average starting position is round 10. Just for comparison: Lando Norris, who is now ranked second, has an average of 9.2, but besides Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll also has an average of 9.9. Both drivers have only had 4 starts outside the top 10 this year.
Another best statistic that reflects just how weak Perez’s streak is.
The last time a Red Bull competitor happened to be 16 years ago, in 2007, they were knocked out of the top 10 in five consecutive qualifying sessions. David Coulthard wasn’t driving the best car in the field at the time, he was driving a young team that hadn’t won a single F1 race at the time…
Given that the RB19 stands out from the field, Perez gets away with these lackluster metrics. On the sacking of Nyck de Vries on Tuesday, for example, several people raised the issue that it is surprising that Red Bull has not yet sacked Perez, and that Daniel Ricciardo has not been immediately installed in his place…
David Coulthard’s qualifying weakness in 2007 was less evident with Red Bull, who were yet to win at the time (Photo: XPB)But the embarrassing results also came from inside the house. Max Verstappen, for example, found himself saying after the Silverstone time trial:
“I don’t know where things went wrong today, but with this car it usually goes into Q3. We are also fighting in the Constructors’ Championship, but according to the current situation, I can win it on my own.
And the defending champion has only proven this fact: Verstappen currently has 255 points in the individual championship, while Mercedes, second in the constructors’ standings, has 203. So for now, Red Bull doesn’t even need Pérez’s 156 units to defend the title.
Helmut Marko and Sergio Perez (Photo: Red Bull Content Pool)Of course, the situation cannot remain like this, and the team’s goals are more serious than this. Helmut’s advisor Marko A Klein ZeitungNac put forward this very thing as one of the arguments against replacing Perez during the year.
“We definitely want second place in the championship. If we want to change the drivers, the points order will be the same, so it’s not even a matter of debate for us.”
Thus, winning the double championship is only possible with Perez, so the parties have no choice but to end this bad streak. Christian Horner trusts Perez: He believes that with their support, they can end this qualifying nightmare in Hungary.
