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Sergio Perez has revealed some of Red Bull’s Formula 1 engineers apologised to him after the recent Italian Grand Prix because the team now better understood the nature of the car problems that had been limiting his performance earlier in the season but were only fully recognised once team-mate Max Verstappen started to struggle too.
Red Bull endured its least competitive weekend of 2024 to date at Monza, also struggled in the next race in Baku last week and is expected to take further corrective action with an upgrade at next month’s Austin race.
While Verstappen’s performance advantage during the middle stages of the season showed Perez was still not getting the most out of the car, he was effectively the ‘canary in the coal mine’ whose struggles potentially should have been taken more seriously.
Monza was a landmark event for Red Bull in terms of understanding its limitations, with team principal Christian Horner saying that “the negativity of that weekend exposed some key areas of the car that we’ve been grappling with for some time”. And as Perez has stressed, he has been struggling long-term with these difficulties, not only during this year but also at times last year.
Horner has previously indicated that some of the weaknesses now proving costly were also apparent in the data at times in 2023.
Asked by The Race if Red Bull was now seeing his value more in terms of feedback, Perez replied: “In a way, yes. To be fair, some of the engineers after Monza came to me and apologise, in a way, because now it’s a lot clearer [what] the issues I was talking about [were].
“It was always the speculation around it and people saying the problem was I was not focused enough or other things.
“But at the end of the day, I’m just happy that we found out the problem and that we can focus on that and improve it.”
Perez’s recent form has been improved, even though his results around the August break are unspectacular on paper.
He finished seventh in both Hungary and Belgium, then took sixth in the Netherlands and eighth in Italy before being classified 17th in Azerbaijan. However, he would likely have finished on the podium, or fourth at worst, but for the late collision with Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz – and Horner even suggested he could have won but for time lost behind Alex Albon and being backed up by Lando Norris that ensured he couldn’t overcut eventual race winner Oscar Piastri.
The trend at Red Bull suggests that Verstappen had been papering over the cracks of growing car problems for a long time, and that because of his strong performances Red Bull underestimated not just Perez’s feedback but Verstappen’s too - given how much even the championship leader raised concerns about his car while still pulling off wins earlier in the season.
Perez is confident that Red Bull’s season can take a big and positive “U-turn” with the upgrade that’s planned for Austin now that the team has found the right direction, provided the car’s behaviour in Singapore this weekend is as expected.
And while speculation continues about his place at Red Bull, his situation has improved considerably since he came close to being dropped during the summer break. His seat for both the rest of this season and 2025 now seems secure.
“The problem I had earlier in the year is that I had a car that I couldn’t drive, I was just very uncomfortable with the car,” said Perez.
“And it was very hard driving into the corners not knowing what it was going to do. It’s really difficult to maximise your performance.
“Now the team have found a lot of direction, a lot of our issues. So now, at least we know what the issues are and we can drive around them.
“Before we didn’t know and it was just all very difficult to drive and I’m just happy that it looks like we’re going in the right direction.
“I feel like if we’re able to confirm what we’ve done in Baku here, our season can take a U-turn, a massive U-turn and still finish strongly.”
Perez also confirmed that despite his accident in Baku, he will be on the latest-specification components for this weekend despite initial fears that he might not be.
He added that there were no problems arising in terms of gearbox and power unit damage from the crash.
“The lads, as usual, have done a tremendous job and we are on the latest spec,” said Perez. “Very surprised with it! The team is pushing flat out and I wasn’t expecting to be on the latest spec and by the looks of it I am.
“It just shows how hard we are pushing and it’s very encouraging and I really hope that I can pay them back with a great result on Sunday.”
