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Was Sergio Perez at a disadvantage against Max Verstappen? "The cars weren't the same"

Antonio Pérez stated in a podcast that his son was not racing on equal terms with Max Verstappen. According to him, the two Red Bulls are not identical and the Dutchman would not be able to replicate his performance in the second car.

Published 03/04/2025 à 18:25

Cyprien Juilhard

  Comment on this article! 3

Was Sergio Perez at a disadvantage against Max Verstappen? "The cars weren't the same"

@DPPI

Who is telling the truth, who is lying? Who should we believe: the team boss, who insists he has no interest in putting one of his two drivers at a disadvantage, or the father of the faithful lieutenant, who believes his son was wronged by driving a car that was deliberately worse than his teammate's? Between Red Bull and the former tenants of the second bucket, the relations are sometimes quite cold and do not really allow us to know who is telling the truth.

Pierre Gasly is very reserved when talking about his time with the Austrians, preferring to keep the reasons for his failure to himself, while Alex Albon had explained that he did not believe in the theory of different cars to justify his difficulty in getting into his teammate's time. There are various arguments to try to explain how no driver manages to perform at the wheel of this car cursed, which, year after year, remains as difficult to handle for ordinary mortals. The only one who can tame it is already a four-time world champion and his overwhelming domination over his teammates poses a thorny question: Max Verstappen Is he too strong for the others or is his car different from the second Red Bull?

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Verstappen would not have "done better" than Perez in his car

Antonio Perez, Sergio's father, is leaning towards the second option. "What I'm about to say is going to cause a lot of noise, but the car with the number 1 [Verstappen] was not the same as the car with the number 11 [Pérez]." the Mexican asserts in the podcast Formula 2. "And if you put the driver from car 1 in car 11, he wouldn't get out of Q1 in qualifying either and he wouldn't overtake the car with the number 1. If you put the driver from car 1 in car 11, he wouldn't do any better. So it depends on the car. The cars weren't the same."

The father of the former Red Bull driver accuses the Austrian team of deliberately supplying Sergio Pérez with a different car: serious accusations, difficult to prove, and completely nonsensical. Why would Red Bull sacrifice its chances of retaining its Constructors' title and the millions of euros associated with it just to favor Max Verstappen?

Antonio Perez is undeterred by Liam Lawson's nightmare start to the season and hopes things will change for the better. Yuki tsunoda. "I hope things will be different today and that in Japan, Yuki will have the best car Red Bull can offer him. This weekend, they are with Honda (at the Japanese GP, editor's note), their main partner. Red Bull must put aside their ideas, their pride, and give Yuki the best possible weapons so he can fight. And so, he must have the same car." While he dreams of a first podium in F1 At Suzuka, Yuki Tsunoda will have his work cut out for him... especially if Perez is right and his car isn't the same as Max Verstappen's.

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3 Comment (s)

Yves-Henri RANDIER

04/04/2025 at 12:11 a.m.

Papa TexMex always sees his son as a potential world champion, how could it be otherwise? That said, as the season progressed, Checo was performing less and less, the car clearly evolving according to Verstappen's indications, Checo having admitted it. And how could it have been otherwise with Verstappen, a pure Red Bull product and already a world champion, and Perez, winner of only one Grand Prix (Bahrain 2020 with the Racing Point RP20 for his 190th start) before being hired by the cans?

V

vincent moyet

04/04/2025 at 02:28 a.m.

None of this really makes sense. Two identical cars can be set up (and therefore behave) very differently. The difference in downforce and suspension stiffness (as well as brake distribution) between the front and rear makes it oversteer or understeer, it all depends on what each driver wants. The question is whether at RB the 2nd driver has the choice of his settings or if Verstappen's (which are supposed to be more effective since he is faster) are imposed on him. One thing we have seen is that Perez, who is an experienced driver, was generally as good as Verstappen at the start of the season, with the car close to the "factory" version, but as the updates arrived, the performance difference increased dramatically. We can therefore think that the evolution of the car is dictated by Verstappen. Perez also testified to this in 2023.

C

Checkered flag

03/04/2025 at 09:36 a.m.

There is nothing conspiratorial about questioning the second Red Bull car. I agree that Verstappen is fast, but in history we have never seen a driver dominate his teammate to such an extent, and above all we have never seen a second driver have so much difficulty driving a car, so yes, we can ask the question: are the two cars identical?

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