After the departure of Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull was looking for a suitable replacement for two seasons. Pierre Gasly and Alexander Albon both fell through the ice, after which Helmut Marko decided to look outside the Red Bull family for a suitable driver as a teammate of Max Verstappen. He ended up with Sergio Perez, who had been shown the door at Racing Point (now Aston Martin).
And the Mexican is performing quite well to date. It is true that he is still changeable from time to time, but he has certainly proven to be of a high level at race pace. He even won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, his first victory for the Austrian team.
One-time world champion Damon Hill has in the F1 Nation Podcast an explanation for the fact that Perez manages to hold his own next to Verstappen. Good, because according to him the entire team is built around the Dutchman and everyone is completely focused on him.
“I have the feeling that Christian Horner, Helmut Marko, the sponsors and the rest are all completely devoted to Verstappen. It is very difficult to intervene and feel comfortable as a driver, but that is what Sergio has to do now His experience – his skin is a bit thicker – I think helps to deal with that better.”
According to Hill, it can quickly happen that a team will lean towards a driver if he is more comfortable in his own skin. “If a driver is doing well, all the energy within the team goes to that driver. To turn that back as a driver is very, very difficult.”
“You’re always fighting for your team’s energy. To keep that energy coming your way, you have to make sure you beat your teammate.”
“We also saw it at Mercedes with Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton. There was even a battle for mechanics. There was even a change of engineers once, to level the playing field. That is the task of a Toto Wolff or Christian Horner, to to avoid a dynamic.”
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