Red Bull boss Christian Horner rated Sergio Perez’s sixth-place finish in the Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort as a “solid drive” for the team.
Horner sought to eradicate any speculation regarding Perez’s future amid a torrid run of form heading into the summer break – granting the Mexican an opportunity to continue his Red Bull journey for the remainder of the season.
The consensus at Red Bull is that Perez needs to regain his confidence and cited upcoming races at Monza, Baku and Singapore as opportunities to recapture form at his preferred circuits.
That left Zandvoort as a damage limitation outlier, but Horner was positive after Perez qualified fifth and wound up sixth in Sunday’s Grand Prix.
“I thought he did a solid job. I mean, if you look at his pace in the race, it was decent,” Horner said post-race.
“I thought Checo, starting P5 and finishing P6, I thought that was a very solid drive by him today.
“Obviously, he lost a position at the start, which was a little frustrating for him but I think that, actually, he’ll take quite a lot of positives out of his performance here, and hopefully puts him on a good trajectory for Monza.”
Perez’s team-mate Max Verstappen reiterated his concerns lie primarily with the performance issues with Red Bull’s car, not that of the second driver.
Verstappen complained of “balance” issues which he said were the same “all weekend at Zandvoort” as he and Perez ran a split-spec of RB20 in Holland.
The Dutchman ran an older spec floor on his RB20, whereas Perez persevered with the latest spec, which the Mexican was “not happy” with after his GP.
“Not happy, we didn’t have the pace today,” he said, despite Horner’s praise.
“We are still really hard on tyres, and our medium-speed performance was very weak.
“I think without it, we will look a lot more competitive. I think we were suffering a lot with the conditions, with the with the tailwind, and probably McLaren and Ferrari were not suffering that much.
“I think the positive thing is that we understand now what’s going on with the car.
“That’s really positive. It’s just a question of how quickly we can fix the issue that we have, but we know where we’re lacking and where are the issues.
“And I think going forward, hopefully we can pick it up. And come Monza, we can be a lot more competitive.”
Horner too added that his “driver’s feedback” will give “real direction for the engineering group.”
A turnaround in fortune for Perez and the wider Red Bull team can’t come soon enough with an upgraded McLaren in the hands of Lando Norris beating Verstappen to Dutch GP victory by 22s and Oscar Piastri finishing fourth.
That result has brought McLaren just 30 points behind Red Bull in the Constructors’ standings with just nine rounds left in the 2024 season.
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