Max Verstappen and Red Bull are no longer the dominant force they were in 2023. Although it looked like 2024 would be a clean sweep at the start of the season, McLaren’s development has arguably put the Milton-Keynes-based outfit on the back foot. Adding to Red Bull’s misery is Sergio Perez‘s poor form and the multi-million dollar damage costs.
In this cost cap era of F1, any damage to the car takes money off the development of a car. Totaling the damages to Perez’s cars this season comes out to $2,864,000, which is a staggering amount considering the season hasn’t even reached its halfway point.
Perez’s recent slump in form is reminiscent of the 2023 season, when despite having a strong start to the campaign, he fell off massively. This season too, he continues to struggle on the front that plagued his previous years – qualifying.
While Verstappen is winning in a car that is no longer the outright fastest, Perez is finding it difficult to get into the podium places. This is in addition to the aforementioned crash bill, which spiked tremendously following Perez’s Monaco GP crash. Verstappen on the other hand, has a damage bill of around $685,000.
With Red Bull falling behind in the development race, all this money should ideally be invested in R&D to make the car faster. The Austrian stable wouldn’t like a repeat of 2022 where the breach of cost cap led to penalties.
Although Team Principal Christian Horner has been supportive of Checo, he has urged the Mexican and his team to get to the bottom of the problem with his pace.
Christian Horner supporting Sergio Perez
Perez was the second-best driver in the first few races of 2024, which is what Red Bull wanted. Since Imola, however, he has been nowhere close to the top three and the gap with Verstappen keeps increasing.
Horner explained how Perez knows that F1 is a pressure business, especially when one’s teammate keeps winning races and they aren’t performing well. He suggests that he is confident of Checo bouncing back, as he has done during his Red Bull stint until now.
“He’ll have to dig deep to do that. We are doing our best to support him and find what is missing. The first four or five races were extremely competitive. Whatever has happened to cause him to drop off”, said Horner after the Austrian GP as per si.com.
With Verstappen and Norris crashing towards the end of the race, Checo should’ve been in a position to win the race and minimize the damage. That is what Red Bull expects from him; to be in and around Verstappen but not fight with the No.1 driver for race wins. Only time will tell if Red Bull made the right decision by retaining Perez.
