Christian Horner warns Sergio Perez to be on his ‘A-game’ going up against Max Verstappen in 2023
2023 will be Sergio Perez's third year with Red Bull, and Christian Horner thinks he's got to be on his A-game now - not just in relation to Max Verstappen.
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Left to right: Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez, and Christian Horner
Without a doubt, Max Verstappen is the dominant force in Formula 1 right now. He and Red Bull, that is. The Dutchman has won the two previous world championships. The second of those, he won with relative ease – second-placed man, Charles Leclerc, was 146 points behind. Unfortunately, the team could not make it a 1-2 in the Drivers’ championship. Verstappen’s teammate, Sergio Perez finished just 3 points behind Leclerc.
It’s fair to say that Verstappen has had the measure of his teammate in the two seasons they’ve raced together. 2021 was more comfortable for the Dutchman, but in the early races of 2022, Perez had been a little bit more competitive. He took pole position in Jeddah and won the Monaco Grand Prix. At that stage, he was still a title contender, though an unlikely one. Soon, though, with two retirements in quick succession, it all faded away.
Perez’s relative competitiveness with Verstappen in early 2022 was put down to the car not suiting the Dutchman. However, this time around, Red Bull have apparently developed the car with characteristics suiting both drivers. In the first race of the season, the Mexican had a slow start and tussled with Carlos Sainz and Leclerc. Verstappen, on the other hand, sailed away into the distance, never to be seen again. He won by almost 12 seconds to Perez, who finished second.
The Dutchman is definitely not easy to beat, but it’s high time that Perez is more competitive, at least for the sake of his own ambitions. As per Formula 1’s official website, when asked where Perez ‘needs to change’ to challenge Verstappen, Red Bull’s team principal, Christian Horner first said: “His lap time.” and continued: “Look, Max is a hell of a competitor and he’s a tough… probably the highest benchmark in F1. But Checo is now in his third year in the team, he’s confident, he’s comfortable and he’s got to be on his A-game – not just with Max.”
Christian Horner on what Sergio Perez has brought to Red Bull
Christian Horner also thinks that Formula 1 is gearing up for an “exciting year”, with potentially many drivers in the mix for the title, and “pushing each other hard”. He said: “[Ferrari’s] drivers are pushing each other hard, Mercedes’ drivers are [pushing each other] hard, we’ve got what looks like a pretty motivated veteran [Fernando Alonso] in a green car as well, so it’s going to be a really exciting year.”
The Briton also feels that Sergio Perez is “mature enough” to deal with having Max Verstappen as his teammate. He also pointed out: “I think Checo with that experience, he’s been through some of the hard knocks and so on with his career to that point, and I think what he’s brought to us is… he’s a very rounded guy, he’s a great team player. He’s got a good outlook on the development of the car and he’s very easy to work with, so that’s all the reasons for taking him in the first place, and he’s delivering on that.”
It’ll be interesting to see if Perez can give a better account of himself against Verstappen this season. He needs to step up for the team’s sake and his own – after all, he hopes to win the world championship. But it’s definitely not going to be easy.
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)