Max Verstappen has been absolutely no match for his teammate Sergio Perez this season and has been miles ahead of him in terms of performance and results. The hype that Perez had created around him in 2021 is slowly fading away now that Verstappen has come into his element and has become unstoppable. As Perez’s place in Red Bull comes under threat, a former GP2 teammate of his, Giedo Van der Garde revealed on the Sky Sports F1 podcast that the Verstappen dominance is hurting Perez mentally. He also named the one driver who can actually match Verstappen in equal cars.
The fact that Verstappen has won 11 races this season, compared to the 2 of Sergio Perez goes on to show just how dominant the Dutchman had been. There have been instances this season where Verstappen has claimed pole for five races in a row, with Perez failing to reach Q3 in all of them.
Sergio Perez qualified 1.3 seconds behind his teammate Max Verstappen…#F1 #DutchGP pic.twitter.com/t5UY9cUJMj
— Fastest Pitstop (@FastestPitStop) August 26, 2023
All of this has created massive doubt over Perez’s future at the team. While both Christian Horner and Helmut Marko has been extremely supportive of the Mexican, Marko’s words of affirmation are slowly turning into doubt. Over the summer break, the Red Bull chief was seen meeting up with Daniel Ricciardo, the reported number one contender to replace Perez at Red Bull.
Van der Garde reveals the struggles that Sergio Perez is facing currently
Former F1 driver and Perez’s teammate in GP2, Giedo Van der Garde appeared on the Sky Sports F1 podcast recently and was asked by a fan regarding why Verstappen has been so much more dominant than his teammate. He was also asked if there’s anyone on the grid who can actually match up to the Dutchman if given an equal car.
Van der Garde explained that Verstappen has always been on a different level and for the last few years, has destroyed his teammates consistently. As for Perez, Van der Garde rates him extremely highly, but claims that the failure to reach the levels set by Verstappen must be hurting him mentally, which is making things even worse for him.
The former F1 driver then picked out a few drivers from the grid who, according to him, can actually challenge Verstappen in equal cars. This includes the likes of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. However, when it comes to choosing the one driver who can match Verstappen as his teammate, Van der Garde names Lando Norris.
He said, “What I rate very high is Lando Norris. I think he is the one. Maybe in a few years, to become very very close to Max Verstappen.” And this might be a possibility given the rumors about Red Bull trying to recruit the young Briton to create a dream team in 2026.
Perez is in a similar situation to Rosberg against Hamilton
Another interesting aspect of the question asked by the fan was the comparison of Verstappen and Perez to the Hamilton – Rosberg dynamic back in the early days of the turbo-hybrid era. During that time, both Mercedes driver used to equally dominate the field because of their car being much better than the rest. However, that is clearly not the case with Perez and Verstappen.
Therefore, it would not be fair to single out the RB19 as the major cause behind Verstappen’s dominance. Rosberg also recently spoke about how difficult it is for Perez to accept that Verstappen is just simply better than him. The German also related to Perez because of how his rivalry with Hamilton had left him mentally drained. However, for Rosberg, things worked out in the end as he went on to beat Hamilton in 2016.
