Shop
Christian Horner feels Sergio Perez will be acutely aware that only “a disaster” for Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen will deny the Dutchman a third consecutive F1 drivers’ championship.
Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko, in his usual inimitable style, put Perez’s situation into context in the build-up to the recent Belgian Grand Prix when he said the Mexican had “woken up from his world championship dream”.
Marko additionally suggested that such a situation would help Perez “focus again on delivering the best possible performance”.
Initially, Perez was in contention, trailing Verstappen by just six points after the first four races, only to suffer a miserable run, particularly in qualifying, as he failed to reach Q3 for six consecutive grands prix.
Going into the summer break, Perez is now 125 points behind Verstappen, and second in the championship which, according to Marko, is as good as the 33-year-old could hope for.
Although comfortably caught and passed by Verstappen at Spa-Francorchamps, Perez at least secured the runner-up position, his best result since the Miami GP in early May.
Assessing Perez’s mental state going into the summer break, team principal Horner said: “I think he’ll have taken a lot of confidence out of the weekend. He put it on the front row, led the grand prix, and finished second.
“So he goes into the summer break a clear second in the drivers’ world championship, so he’ll take some confidence out of it.”
As for Marko’s typically blunt assessment of Perez’s circumstances, Horner added: “We all know Helmet is fairly straightforward in some of his analysis.
“Checo knows that, barring a disaster for Max, this championship is out of reach, so it’s about him maximising his performance, not losing ground to any of the drivers behind, and trying to pick up a few wins between now and the end of the year.”
At least Horner ended the weekend at Spa still on speaking terms with Perez.
Following Perez’s qualifying performance on Friday, in which he was third fastest – elevated to second due to a gearbox penalty for Verstappen – Horner congratulated his driver, to which the response was: “Will you talk to me now?”
Explaining the circumstances, Horner said: “I told him I wasn’t going to talk to him if he wasn’t in the top five, and that I’d squeeze part of his anatomy if he wasn’t.
“So it seemed to do the job. We’ll have to try it again in Zandvoort (for the Dutch GP).”
