Red Bull warned of swift McLaren fate with Sergio Perez factor identified
Sergio Perez walks away from his Red Bull RB20
Unless Sergio Perez returns a “changed man” after the summer break, it’s been claimed Red Bull will “very quickly” be overtaken by McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship.
After weeks of speculation, and a run of nine races off the podium, Red Bull surprised many when team boss Christian Horner announced after a crunch meeting that the team would continue with Perez alongside Max Verstappen after the summer break.
The Constructors’ ‘isn’t going to be close’, and here’s why…
It was, fair to say, an unexpected decision given Horner himself had said days prior that Red Bull “cannot run on one leg” as they had been doing.
But insisting that the team’s “priority” was to get Perez back into his early season form, the team boss added: “The team has been and is right behind him. Everybody wants to see him succeed because it hurts seeing him in the situation that he is.”
This led to suggestions that Red Bull could roll back on their 2024 upgrades, at least with Perez’s car given he had four podium finishes in the first five races before falling off the podium in Miami.
However, in the never-ending driver versus car debate, one in which Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache concedes that if the car works for Perez then it means “both drivers will be able to extract the maximum out of it”, F1 pundit Clarkson reckons the change needs to come from Perez.
And if it doesn’t, well that will cost Red Bull the Constructors’ Championship.
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Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, he said: “I could see McLaren getting some wind in their sails and very quickly overtaking Red Bull unless Sergio Perez comes back from the summer break a changed man, but let’s wait and see.”
Scoring just 28 points since the Miami Grand Prix, the first of McLaren’s two race wins this season, Perez has hurt Red Bull in the Constructors’ Championship.
McLaren are a mere 42 points behind Red Bull in the teams’ standings having scored 242 points to Red Bull’s 169 since Lando Norris’ Miami GP win.
It has Damon Hill predicting Verstappen, 78 points to the good in the Drivers’ standings, will win this year’s World title but Red Bull will lose the teams’ trophy.
“I think it’s gonna be Max by a whisker, and the Constructors’ Champions will be McLaren,” he said.
“I think it’s going to go down to at least Brazil, something like that. I can’t see how we’re going to get that…
“You know you still need luck to win races and whilst you can have an advantage and win by a whisker, which is sort of what we’re seeing with Max at the moment, you only need one drop out and that’s 26 points out the window with fastest lap.”
Clarkson responded: “I agree, I think it’s going to be Max by a whisker. I think we’re going to go down to the last race in Abu Dhabi but I think the Constructors’ isn’t going to be that close.”
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