F1 News: Red Bull Chief Reveals How Serio Perez Sacrifice Boosted Max Verstappen Dominance

Saajan Jogia | Dec 1, 2024

LUSAIL CITY, QATAR - OCTOBER 08: Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (1) Oracle Red Bull Racing RB19 leads Oscar Piastri of Australia driving the (81) McLaren MCL60 Mercedes during the F1 Grand Prix of Qatar at Lusail International Circuit on October 08, 2023 in Lusail City, Qatar. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images) / Red Bull Content Pool

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has highlighted Sergio Perez's key role in improving the RB20 F1 car's performance for both the Qatar Grand Prix and potentially the season finale in Abu Dhabi. The team collected valuable clean air data from Perez’s car during the Qatar Sprint race, which contributed to important adjustments that were reflected in Max Verstappen’s strong pace during qualifying.

After qualifying 16th for the Sprint race, Perez started from the pit lane due to his team making adjustments to the car during parc ferme. With a disappointing qualifying result, Red Bull decided to use the race as a chance to gather valuable data in clean air. This data would then be compared with information from future sessions, enabling the team to assess the car’s performance. To maximize the opportunity, Red Bull also pitted Perez for a front-wing change during the race.

The test proved to be a success for Red Bull, as the data collection helped in setting the RB20 to its best configuration, which helped Verstappen secure pole position, while Perez secured P9. Though the Dutchman was dropped to P2 after he attracted a one-spot grid penalty for impeding George Russell in qualifying, Horner revealed that the team managed to boost the car's performance. Speaking to Sky Sports F1, as reported by Motorsportweek, he said:

“It’s a great turnaround. I think the engineers and the team back in Milton Keynes have worked very hard.

“They’ve got a good set-up on the car, Max has immediately felt [more confident] – his first comment was that it feels better.

“And then he’s just gone out and delivered in the most spectacular way.

“We pretty much threw the kitchen sink at it; pretty much everything you could change, we did change.

“You never know if it’s all going to come together in the balance. And it did, and he was able to really nail it.

“We really struggled yesterday, Turn 1, Turn 2, and particularly the last turn; a little bit at seven as well. And those corners suddenly came alive for us.

“That last lap, it was neck and neck with George going into that last turn and he nailed the last corner, and it was just good enough.”

Horner acknowledged the role of Perez's test in the Sprint race for the enhanced performance. He added:

“We made a few changes to Checo’s car, taking him out of parc ferme.

"That’s definitely played a part in what we’ve done here for qualifying.

“Obviously looking at the data, there were three corners that we were really bad at yesterday: Turn 1, Turn 2 and the last corner. We managed to address that today.”

He continued:

“We’re certainly hoping that the changes we made today apply for tomorrow as well.

“It’s very cold here. Getting these tyres to work is crucial. They lasted well in the race earlier, the degradation was very low and I expect to see that again tomorrow.”