There is a huge gap between Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez at the moment. Verstappen – the Championship leader – is at 277 points whereas Perez is in P7 with 131. Both are driving the same car, but still, the outcome has been different and Paul Monaghan reveals the reason behind the same.
Monaghan, the chief engineer at Red Bull, has a simple assessment – Verstappen is faster. “I don’t want to be rude to Checo, and he could very well take my head off if he was sitting here,” he tells Formu1a.uno.
Speaking about the Red Bull drivers, Paul Monaghan spoke about what makes Verstappen special and what the main difference is between him and Perez: “I don’t want to be rude to Checo, and he could very well take my head off if he was sitting here.”
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Explaining what makes Verstappen better than Perez, Monaghan adds, “He gets to the limit and stays a little bit closer to it, and doesn’t go too far over it in qualifying when he overdoes it. If that’s the difference, then the average will show up as a number eventually. If that’s the objective measurement, so be it.”
Monaghan’s reasoning explains Verstappen’s performance in Belgium before the summer break. Verstappen qualified in P1 took a ten-place grid penalty, and started the race from P11.
Many felt that qualifying was a fluke, but in reality, Verstappen overperformed in the RB20. Then, in the race, he made up seven places to finish P4.
Perez on the other hand, started from P2 but finished in seventh, which put him under more pressure of losing his Red Bull seat.
Perez on Thin Ice Despite the Recent Reports
After the Belgian GP, many sources reported that Red Bull would sack Perez and that the Milton-Keynes-based outfit held a meeting to discuss the same. Christian Horner, Helmut Marko, and the other bosses were in attendance, but they concluded that Perez would remain with them, at least for the time being.
Some sources claimed that Liberty Media wanted Perez to remain because he is a commercial asset, which Helmut Marko later denied.
Perez’s seat, however, is not safe in the long run. He has to make amends for a poor first half of the season, and if his underperformances cost Red Bull the Constructors’ Title, he could be sacked.
