Damon Hill has slammed a Formula 1 driver for being ‘nowhere near’ the standards expected during the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix after a ‘disastrous’ week in Barcelona.
Sunday saw Max Verstappen claim his seventh win of the season and 61st in F1 after fending off Lando Norris. The Red Bull star won the Spanish GP by just 2.219 seconds to his McLaren rival. Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes rounded out the podium positions a further 17.790s back.
George Russell also threatened Norris and Verstappen in the Spanish GP after snatching the lead at the start. Yet the Mercedes driver would not retain the position and dropped back to P4, holding off Ferrari pilot Charles Leclerc to the chequered flag with a 0.389s advantage.
Damon Hill feels Sergio Perez’s Spanish GP display was ‘disastrous’ for Red Bull
But while Verstappen gave Red Bull yet further success to stretch his advantage at the top of the drivers’ standings to 69 points, Sergio Perez underwhelmed again. The 34-year-old only managed P8 in the Spanish GP, having started from 11th place thanks to his grid penalty.
Red Bull sacrificed Perez in qualifying to give Verstappen a slipstream, which ultimately saw him miss out on pole position to Norris by 0.020s. The team from Milton Keynes felt it was in their better interests if Perez helped Verstappen over trying to improve on a poor lap in Q3.
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Perez also carried a three-place grid penalty from the Canadian GP after Red Bull told him to continue driving a car in an unsafe condition after crashing. But with Perez only finishing Q3 in eighth and going on to end the Spanish GP in P8, Hill believes it is ‘disastrous’ for Red Bull.
Hill told Sky Sports F1 (23/6, 16:03): “It’s difficult to understand, isn’t it? He’s got in the best car next to McLaren, obviously, but he’s not able to match Max.
“Now, that means four or five grid places [sit between Perez and Verstappen]. It’s disastrous really for Red Bull if they want to get him scoring maximum [points], or even helping Max in defending in races. He’s nowhere near up to speed.”
The Spanish GP marked the third race in Sergio Perez’s dark spell
The Spanish GP was ultimately the third successive race in a dark spell for Perez after the Red Bull driver’s woes at the Monaco GP and the Canadian GP. He collided with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen in Monte Carlo and crashed all on his own in Montreal over the last two rounds.
To make matters worse and reinforce Hill’s claim that it is ‘disastrous’ for Red Bull, Perez also bowed out in Q1 at the Monaco GP and the Canadian GP. The Guadalajara native could only set the 18th fastest lap time in Q1 around the Principality and then the 16th best in Canada.
Red Bull will take some comfort in Perez at least reaching Q3 at the Spanish GP. But he could not put a clean lap together in Q3, leaving the team from Milton Keynes in a position to ask the six-time Grand Prix winner to give up his aims for a better result to support Verstappen.
He was never in a position to support Verstappen in the race, though, with Perez labouring home in P8. While one Red Bull driver won the Spanish GP, the other came home 59.524s back. Perez was also 25.764 seconds away from McLaren ace Oscar Piastri in seventh place.
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