25/09/2024
NEWS STORY
Red Bull needs two drivers "firing on all cylinders", warns Christian Horner following lacklustre performance from Sergio Perez.
Like the Ferrari pair, the Mexican's problems began on Saturday when he failed to make it out of Q2 and qualified 13th for the following day's race.
Like most he cited a lack of grip and also "something going on with the tyres" that prevented him qualifying higher up the grid.
Though he made up a number of positions at the start as a result of the incident involving the Williams pair and Tsunoda, his subsequent progress was mainly the result of the pit stops and consequently he spent much of the evening running behind Nico Hulkenberg, in much the same way as he had earlier struggled to pass rookie Franco Colapinto.
It was a world away from his battling performance a week earlier in Baku, and while his teammate was fighting to prevent a McLaren 1-2 and keep Red Bull in the title fight, Perez was only to contribute a single point to the kitty.
Christian Horner was not impressed, and as Daniel Ricciardo appears to have had his last outing for RB, Perez's long-term future is once again in doubt.
"He was stuck around Hulkenberg for basically 30 laps," sighed the Red Bull boss. "I mean, Checo had a good first lap, he'd qualified out of position, and then he just really struggled to overtake.
"He was struggling a little for traction in the areas where you want the traction out of Turn 3 and onto the back straight," he admitted. "But, that was what he could manage today.
"We need to have two drivers firing on all cylinders," he added. "He had a good weekend last weekend. He had a tough weekend this weekend.
"We need to put some weekends together where you can see where McLaren are putting two drivers on the podium. It's those big points that really make a difference.
"We need to make sure that Checo goes as far off the field as we can get it, in terms of finding the right direction."
The Mexican however put much of the blame on the team's strategy, believing it should have used the same aggressive strategy as Ferrari did with Carlos Sainz.
"Looking at it, when you see where Carlos finished we probably lost an opportunity to make more progress and undercut more people. Once we went on a similar tyre age behind Nico, it was pretty much it."
It's almost certain that Liam Lawson is to step into the second RB alongside Tsunoda, but looking ahead to next year, and possibly even the remaining six races, Red Bull could take a gamble and put the New Zealander in the second Red Bull.