Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has reminded Sergio Perez that the AlphaTauri team have “three drivers” after his torrid run continued at the Qatar Grand Prix.
Perez failed to progress to Q3 in qualifying for the eighth time this year before getting caught up in a three-car tangle in the Sprint which handed the title to Max Verstappen.
Having started from the pitlane, Perez only climbed to 10th on Sunday, with his comeback stymied by picking up three time penalties for track limit infringements.
The Mexican has only scored five points in the past three rounds, enabling Lewis Hamilton to close to within 30 points of second place in the Drivers’ Championship.
Marko asserts that Perez must strive to end “this negative spiral” to avoid losing his runner-up spot to Verstappen, who resides a hefty 209 points clear of his team-mate.
“In between there were fast laps again [in Qatar], but it doesn’t help if you get 10-second penalties,” Marko told ORF, noting that he “didn’t even notice’ that Perez had earned a third penalty.
Marko admits that the huge deficit separating Perez and Verstappen wasn’t a problem for Red Bull until the arrival of a rival team that could consistently fill the void.
McLaren has now registered consecutive podiums, leaving Marko worried by the Woking squad’s increased threat.
“But now it becomes critical when two such strong drivers are in the McLaren,” he continued.
“I hope we can save second place [in the World Championship]. It looked quite comfortable for a while, but now the lead is melting.”
Marko has ramped up the pressure on Perez by reminding him that Red Bull’s sister side, AlphaTauri, currently has three drivers who have all competed in recent times.
Daniel Ricciardo returned to the Red Bull fray at the start of this year and was parachuted back into a full-time F1 drive when Nyck de Vries was ousted after 10 races.
Although Ricciardo has been absent in the last five rounds since breaking his left hand in a practice crash at Zandvoort, he has been confirmed alongside Yuki Tsunoda for 2024.
Red Bull reserve driver Liam Lawson deputised impressively for Ricciardo, achieving AlphaTauri’s best result of the year to date with ninth place in Singapore.
“Checo has to deliver now. We have three drivers in the AlphaTauri team, and Lawson is a reserve driver for four cars. So a lot can happen [in the future].”
Despite the New Zealander being overlooked for a drive next year, Marko says it’s a “simply logical consequence that Lawson will sooner or later be consistently in Formula 1.”
Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner added to Sky F1: “Checo has had a shocking race. “He had a terrible weekend.
Horner highlights that Perez missed an opportunity to extend his advantage over Hamilton, because he’s “suddenly much further ahead” without the penalties “and that on a day where Lewis didn’t score points”.
“So it was a missed opportunity to really consolidate second place.
“We’re going to give all the support we possibly can for Checo to find his form,” he insisted. “You guys will beat him up enough, but we really want to see him achieve what we know he’s capable of.”
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