Max Verstappen reportedly found his mojo in Baku, Azerbaijan this year and it was enough for him to hurt Sergio Perez’s ego. This is something Tom Coronel, a Dutch professional racer believes in as Verstappen used his newly found set-up to defeat Perez in Miami, and eventually, it was enough to destroy the Mexican for the rest of the year.
Speaking about this in Viaplay’s annual review, Coronel said as quoted by F1 Maximaal, “In Baku, you could see that both Red Bulls were fast, but Pérez believed in them a little more. There Max was working on that setting, and what they found there, that was it. He invented something there.”
Following this, he added, “Then you have a chance if you are Pérez, right? No. That was the KO [knockout] on the nose of Pérez.” Another Dutch driver Christijan Albers commented on this, “That was a gigantic catch-up race by Verstappen. That is seriously painful for a driver’s ego.”
Admittedly, Perez had a mega start to his 2023 F1 season where he took two wins in four races. The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was a cherry on top for him as he took the Sprint win as well as the GP win. However, things began to go downhill for him from there on.
As Red Bull found the perfect RB19 set-up for Verstappen, it became increasingly difficult for Perez to comply with it. This resulted in a huge dip in form for the former Racing Point driver. On the other hand, Max Verstappen won race after race post-Miami. In the end, there were rumors about Red Bull looking to replace the Mexican driver, with several replacements in the loop.
How did Sergio Perez save his season and the Red Bull seat?
As Sergio Perez was not having the races he was looking for, there were reports of him getting sacked. In return, the talks of Yuki Tsunoda and especially Daniel Ricciardo getting Perez’s seat in Red Bull surfaced.
As Ricciardo was already in the AlphaTauri after replacing Nyck de Vries, he was a leading candidate to race alongside Verstappen. On the other hand, Liam Lawson was up in the wing to take Ricciardo’s seat if the Honey Badger moved to Red Bull.
The Australian driver, on this, told ESPN, “This [Red Bull seat] for me would be like the fairytale. Honestly, the fairytale ending [would be] to finish my career here if I could have it all my own way.” Nevertheless, the Mexican driver found his form to some extent and was able to hold on to his P2 in the Drivers’ championship against a resurgent Lewis Hamilton.
In the end, Perez was able to impress Christian Horner who supported the 33-year-old driver and snubbed all the speculations of his RBR exit. This has come amid the power struggle between Helmut Marko and Horner within Red Bull where the 80-year-old made discriminatory comments against Sergio Perez.
