Christian Horner defends Sergio Perez’s race engineer after massive backlash on social media
Sergio Perez's race engineer Hugh Bird has been called out by fans for his subpar results.
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Sergio Perez and Christian Horner (via Formula 1)
Sergio Perez has been performing sub-optimally this season. The Mexican is yet to win a race, while his teammate Max Verstappen, has scored seven wins. On the other hand, Perez’s fans have put the burden of his inability to perform on his race engineer, Hugh Bird. However, these allegations were not appreciated by Red Bull supremo Christian Horner, who defended the Brit amidst the accusations.
As the Mexican Grand Prix weekend rolled up, speculation in the paddock started making the rounds against Sergio Perez‘s race engineer. The 34-year-old had his last venture on F1’s podium in China and has been in a drought of impressive results ever since. This led some fans to accuse Hugh Bird, who has partnered with Perez in his struggles at Red Bull.
With Bird being under fire, Christian Horner was quick to the rescue and battered all the claims that were made against the Englishman.
Everybody has their own view on things, and I think he does a super job. He’s a really bright guy. He’s grown up in the team. He’s out there giving his best for his driver, for his team and I think it’s very harsh for people to judge and criticise from the outside when they have about 1% of the facts of what he’s actually dealing with.
Christian Horner said in an interview as quoted by PlanetF1
However, the six-time race winner would want to utilize Bird’s support at the Mexican GP, as he is currently under pressure to lose his job. With young talents lining up behind him, Perez would want to squash these rumors and get on top of the rostrum to make a major statement in the F1 paddock.
Sergio Perez reckons he could get through the tough phase of his career
On the other hand, the Red Bull driver only showed glimpses of performance in the past few races. This would not be enough for the Austrian giant to retain him for the 2025 F1 season. Despite the pressure, Perez has stayed optimistic and reckons to get through the tough phase.
Subsequently, the 34-year-old explained how he has been working tirelessly to get back to his former form.
I feel that I’m in the same boat as the team. We’re working towards solving it. We found a big issue in Monza. So after Monza, we thought we were finding directions and heading in the right direction. I think this is Formula 1. Sometimes the results are not coming, and you just have to make sure you keep your head down, focus on the stuff that you can control, and the rest is something that you cannot get bothered with.
Sergio Perez said in an interview
With the Mexican accepting the harsh reality of the sport, he is ushering in to get his act together. However, he is expected to not be on the pace of Max Verstappen as he is understood to be driving with older parts. This has been done to aid the Dutchman in scoring a huge haul of points at the Mexican GP.
Despite the team’s attempts, Verstappen would have to extract every single tenth out of the RB20 as McLaren and Ferrari appear to be the pace-setters. Thus, the championship fight is still on in both the constructor’s and driver’s tussle.
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Geetansh Pasricha
(772 Articles Published)