Sergio Perez believes that now that he has had a full season with the team, he can show more of his ability at Red Bull. In what could be seen as a thinly veiled warning shot against Mercedes, the Mexican believes he has a solid foundation to achieve great things with a team eager to end the dominance of the Silver Arrows in the Constructors’ Championship.
Perez has had a pretty consistent year with Red Bull and has generally been in and around the top 5 every race weekend.
The highlight was of course his only race win in Baku in 2021, where he did what his team asked him to do when his teammate Max Verstappen retired with a puncture.
That was in the midst of two great points, followed by top five finishes in six consecutive races, followed by three consecutive podiums in Turkey, the US and Mexico.
Those results and his incredible defensive driving style, which may have helped Verstappen become world champions in Abu Dhabi, were enough to convince Red Bull to keep him for another year.
That he was chosen to stay ahead of Pierre Gasly, who in the end wasn’t rewarded for an excellent season with sister team AlphaTauri, says a lot about the team’s confidence in Perez.
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Perez will know he will have to change this in 2022 as he will face George Russell in the battle for second drivers (with both teams going to insist that they are certainly not second drivers).
But now he has a year of experience on the team and feels in a much better position to deliver what the team needs from him in the coming season.
“Well, we already have a baseline to work from and improve from, which makes a big difference,” added the Mexican.
“I already know the people. I already know who to ask what and how I can get the best out of every single person around me. That’s a completely different picture.”
Former Formula 1 racing driver Jolyon Palmer believes that Perez could possibly have achieved more in his first year at Red Bull if the team hadn’t been so busy with Verstappen and his title fight.
“Mercedes was constructors champion again, despite a difficult start in the pre-season, which was shaken by rule changes in favor of the Red Bull with higher rake,” he told Formula1.com.
“As in the drivers’ championship, it was extremely tight throughout the season, but Mercedes got in the car and was strong in the second half.
“There wasn’t much between the second drivers on each team either, as Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez had very different strengths – the qualifying pace in the former versus the race car in the latter.
“In the end, it felt like Red Bull was more preoccupied with the drivers’ title when they sacrificed Perez’s race a couple of times at Silverstone and Abu Dhabi, while Mercedes may regret having ordered Bottas back to Hamilton, Austria .
“Maybe that means that Red Bull was more pragmatic last year to win the coveted drivers’ title, but Mercedes will go down in the overall standings as the best team of 2021.”
