How well would Sergio Perez have played at Aston Martin?

statistics

Team: Aston Martin

Driver: Sebastian Vettel – Lance Hike

Race duel: 4-6

Points: 30-18

Qualification duel: 7-4

Qualifying difference: 0.020s in favor of Vettel

Walk is not a game

Before we dive into the data, we actually need to provide some background on the information. Lance Stroll is always ridiculed as a “pay driver”, but in recent years he has been praised for his good performances, such as the pole in the rain in Turkey. Stroll certainly has qualities, but we can’t say he’s a world class talent.

During his time in Formula 1, Stroll had Felipe Massa, Sergey Sirotkin and Sergio Perez as teammates. Massa was faster than Stroll on his return, Sirotkin was faster than Stroll for most of the time, although he ended up behind the Canadian, and the difference with Perez was pretty big too. In the first year of their duel, Perez was on average over a tenth faster per qualifying compared to Stroll, but in 2020 that difference widened to 0.316 seconds.

In 2019, Perez scored 52 points compared to the 21 points Stroll got, and in 2020 the difference was 125 to 75. So, with Perez struggling so hard with Max Verstappen, one could argue that Lance Stroll isn’t world class -Talent is.

Vettel’s case

In that regard, Aston Martin was an excellent choice for Vettel. For two years, the German had been beaten by the new Ferrari talent Charles Leclerc and had lost all of his self-confidence there. At Aston Martin, he has become the team’s figurehead, even though he had to sit in the car next to the boss’s son.

The podium in Hungary (from which Vettel was later disqualified) also showed how happy the team is to have such a world champion. Vettel celebrated with his mechanics, but you start to wonder: How good would Perez have been with this car? The Mexican was pushed aside for Vettel while Perez was the best driver on the team.

Given Vettel’s status as a four-time world champion, one would expect him to keep Stroll in check for a while as well. However, this is not yet the case. The German crossed the finish line more often than Stroll in qualifying, but on average the gap is minimal: 0.020 seconds per qualifying. When you consider that they were three tenths behind Perez, one wonders what Perez could do with the current Aston Martin car.

Vettel holds the line

In this regard, Vettel seems to be following the same pattern as when he was at Ferrari. Vettel can still do some nice things on his day, such as his podium place in Hungary or Azerbaijan. The problem lies deeper, however. For a whole season he doesn’t seem to be able to comfortably outperform a driver like Lance Stroll.

For Aston Martin, too, one can wonder whether that is a good thing. The team points out the regulations that made the car slower, but the team should also look to themselves. They kicked out the driver who scored the most points and was the fastest on Saturday to bring in a driver who doesn’t seem to be able to do the same. Was Perez just a little bit too fast for the boss’s son and preferred a different teammate? We will never know

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