F1 News
Horner: Perez struggled with "gulf in points difference with Verstappen"
Sergio Perez will no longer be a part of Red Bull Racing following team and driver announcements yesterday. Today it was revealed that the Mexican driver would be replaced by Liam Lawson, Red Bull Junior talent. Christian Horner, the Austrian team's Chief gave his thoughts on why Perez was ousted from the team following a tough 2024 season.
During the first seven races, there were no on track issues for Red Bull Racing as the team hardly ever got off the podium, with Max Verstappen winning most races and bagging pole positions left and right, and even the now ousted Sergio Perez finishing on the podium more often than not. However, as the season went on, Red Bull Racing encountered development issues of a lack of correlation between their simulation tools and the performance on track. That on top of teams like McLaren and Ferrari coming into form, and Mercedes also joining the fray at times at the front, only compounded difficulty after difficulty for Red Bull Racing.
"The harder you try, the slower you go"?
However, whil Verstappen went on to secure two more wins in the latter part of the season, eventually winning the Driver's Title, Perez could only scored 49 points in the last two thirds of the season. With the pressure mounting, Horner believes the gap in points also had an effecto on Perez' form. " I think that's the thing. I think that he's not really quite sure. Of course, the car became more narrow in its performance window, and he struggled with that compared to Max. But, obviously such an enormous gulf in points difference between the two drivers, he was struggling with that. And that, of course, then puts more pressure on him. And the harder you try sometimes, the slower you go," Horner explained to Sky Sports.
"And it became almost like a vicious circle for him. So there were flashes of old form in Azerbaijan. But unfortunately, that didn't translate into points. So it's been a hugely frustrating campaign for him, and of course that's hurt us quite badly in the Constructors' Championship," the Red Bull team boss concluded.
This article was written in collaboration with Estéban den Toom
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