Sergio Perez is still struggling to show any sign of improvement in his Red Bull. Even though it was a Sprint weekend in Austria, he still walked away with just seven points.
It was telling that teammate Max Verstappen more than doubled that tally even though he suffered a late puncture in his battle with Lando Norris and received a 10-second penalty. Perez has now scored just 15 points in the five races since the Miami Grand Prix at the start of May.
One mitigating factor is that his final lap of Sprint qualifying in Spielberg was disrupted by Esteban Ocon. Red Bull released him amongst the two Alpine cars in the final moments of the session, and he didn’t have the space he needed to complete a clean lap.
In the end, he ended up four tenths slower than he was in SQ2, even on faster tyres. But the reality is that Perez was struggling for pace anyway.
He dropped from seventh to eighth in the Sprint itself, and he could only manage the fourth row in qualifying for the main Grand Prix too. In the same machinery, Verstappen blew the field away, with a four-tenth margin to second place.
Perez then suffered the ignominy of losing out to Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg in the race. He showcased the damage to his Red Bull afterwards, but it’s done little to address the concerns about his performances.
Sergio Perez deficit to Max Verstappen is now the second-largest ever
Perez has now fallen 119 points behind Verstappen in the drivers’ championship. He’s currently fifth, and he could soon drop to seventh.
After finishing first and second respectively at the Red Bull Ring, George Russell and Oscar Piastri have each closed to within seven points. And based on the Mexican’s current trajectory, he won’t be able to hold that position for long.
Soy Motor point out that the deficit to his teammate is the second-largest at this stage of a season since F1 introduced the current points system in 2010. Felipe Massa, who was 139 points behind Ferrari partner Fernando Alonso at this point in 2012, holds the record.
Alonso battled Sebastian Vettel for the title that year in a Ferrari car with clear limitations. He would ultimately lose out by just three points, but he finished five places and 156 points ahead of Massa.
The Brazilian did improve relative to his teammate in the second half of the season. But Perez, who finished a record 290 points adrift in 2023, has shown little sign of being able to close in on Verstappen.
Perez told the one change that keep him on the F1 grid
Perez has already earned a new contract at Red Bull, but the team may now be regretting the timing of their announcement. They made their commitment prior to the Canadian GP last month, with around two-thirds of the season still to go.
Had they been more patient, Perez may have given them reason to seriously consider a change. The 34-year-old is coming under pressure even though he’s already signed on the dotted line.
Team principal Christian Horner admits that the former McLaren driver is ‘underdelivering’ right now. But he’s confident that he’s shown the ability to bounce back in recent times.
Former GP2 champion Davide Valsecchi has warned that he won’t ‘stay in Formula 1 for much longer’ if he remains so far behind Verstappen. No driver, he says, could expect to remain on the grid in those circumstances.
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