Sergio Perez, Red Bull, Baku City Circuit, 2024

Fixing Red Bull’s car problems ‘will benefit me more than Verstappen’ – Perez

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In the round-up: Sergio Perez believes it he stands to benefit more than his team mate if Red Bull are able to solve the handling problems which have plagued their RB20.

In brief

Car fix will work better for me – Perez

Perez says Max Verstappen has been less affected by the problems with Red Bull’s car than he has. “I think it’s a thing with the side of Max that he’s less sensitive to the issues we have – just by nature,” Perez told the official F1 channel.

“Some people don’t understand – especially from the media side – that the different driver styles can come to different conclusions. The good thing was that Max was a lot less sensitive to it than I was. Races ago I was complaining about these issues, but now it seems that they’re so big that even Max is feeling them.

“So I think the solution will benefit me even more with my style. Now it’s very clear in the data, the team is fully aware of it and hopefully we can fix the issue soon going forwards because then we can unlock a lot of performance on the car.”

MPs criticise F1’s Baku race in letter

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Ahead of this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, a group of human rights campaigners, including multiple members of the UK’s House of Commons and House of Lords, have written to F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali and Liberty Media president Greg Maffei to criticise F1’s race in the nation.

“Ahead of the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Baku, we write on behalf of six Armenian political prisoners – former leaders of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region – who are being unlawfully held hostage by Azerbaijani authorities,” the letter reads.

“As the grand prix approaches, Formula 1’s presence risks distracting from Azerbaijan’s human rights abuses. Formula 1 cannot claim to have a positive impact in Azerbaijan while these Armenian hostages remain imprisoned. Profits must not come at the expense of human rights. Formula 1 must stop enabling regimes like Azerbaijan to sportswash their crimes. By speaking out against this injustice and calling for the release of the Armenian political prisoners in Azerbaijan, Formula 1 can demonstrate its commitment to human rights in the countries it visits.”

F1 needs “very similar driving style” to F3 – Bearman

Haas driver Oliver Bearman, who is cubstituting for the banned Kevin Magnussen this weekend, says that F1 cars require a driving style more akin to that in Formula 3 than F2.

“For me, it’s just the downforce level of F1,” he said. “It allows you to do so much more.

“The way you drive the car is a bit different [to F2]. I would relate it a bit more to F3. F3 is a very similar driving style to F1. You can just play with the limit a bit more in F1.

“It’s optimised. When the car is on point, it’s really perfect. And it’s more of a confidence thing, whether you extract the lap time or not whereas it’s a bit less once you really know the car enough, it’s more you know you drive to what is possible from the car other than yourself.”

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Comment of the day

With some suggesting that McLaren have prioritised Lando Norris too late in the season, Rom argues that if Norris misses out on the title by a handful of points, he will only have himself to blame…

I’d argue Norris not winning with a more than capable enough car in Imola, Spain, Canada and Silverstone is worth more than just 10 points. How about not finishing behind Verstappen in Spa who had a grid penalty? Or throw away another pole in Monza where Piastri was justified since Norris did not even match his team mates’ pace at all that race?

The 10 points lost in Hungary and Monza is an easy excuse if Norris misses it by less than that margin. It is from all his earlier mistakes and wasting mid-season opportunities this year which made McLaren reluctant on team orders. If Norris won more than just two races with that car and closed the points gap, McLaren would’ve told Piastri to move aside for wins much earlier.
Rom

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Frantz Guns, Jackysteeg and Nick!

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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14 comments on “Fixing Red Bull’s car problems ‘will benefit me more than Verstappen’ – Perez”

  1. Profile Photo

    Esploratore (@esploratore1)
    13th September 2024, 1:21

    Somehow I don’t believe perez, if the car improves I think it’s natural to expect verstappen to get back to fighting for the win and 2nd places and perez to stay around 5th.

    1. Dex
      13th September 2024, 3:22

      5th?

      1. SteveP
        13th September 2024, 9:38

        It’s a typo, he meant 15th :)

    2. Dale
      13th September 2024, 22:50

      All that tells us is that you lack the language ability or mental capacity to understand what he’s saying.

  2. Sumedh
    13th September 2024, 4:05

    Just realized, Bearman is the 3rd driver after Schumacher and Vettel to do just 1 race with their first team and move on to their 2nd team.

    Also, come Monday, Bearman would have raced with as many teams as fellow Brit, Lewis Hamilton :)

    1. Derek Edwards
      13th September 2024, 6:03

      Nick de Vries?

    2. Profile Photo

      Red Andy (@red-andy)
      13th September 2024, 7:04

      Think that applies to a few of the 90s pay drivers as well, e.g. Taki Inoue and Jean-Denis Deletraz.

    3. SteveP
      13th September 2024, 8:37

      I think you need to wait until next year, then you can announce that he has driven for three teams in two seasons.

  3. Profile Photo

    Jere (@jerejj)
    13th September 2024, 6:25

    Baku has been in F1 since 2016, yet only this year did some MPs decide to criticize the event via letters like they’ve done with Bahrain for a while.

    1. Profile Photo

      Red Andy (@red-andy)
      13th September 2024, 16:05

      The letter mentions the arrest and imprisonment of former leaders in Nagorno-Karabakh, which occurred about 12 months ago, after the last Azerbaijan GP.

      Azerbaijan hardly had a gold-standard human rights record before that, but this campaign appears to be specifically in response to that particular act by the government in Baku.

  4. Asd
    13th September 2024, 8:12

    Formula 2 = doesn’t drive like F1, doesn’t give you a seat in F1, what a gimmick series

  5. An Sionnach
    13th September 2024, 9:58

    If they relax the handling, they might only go as far as Max needs it to be relaxed. They won’t want to shed speed from the car to accommodate anyone else.

  6. Profile Photo

    Webbo (@webbo82)
    13th September 2024, 11:50

    “Cubstituting” like, because he’s a young bear man?!

  7. Dale
    13th September 2024, 22:55

    Laughable double standards by British MP’s.
    They seem fine with the F1 race in Florida and the one in Texas, both territories which have had far worse human rights abuses highlighted in recent years.
    And then there’s the right wing race based riots at home … perhaps the British GP should be cancelled for human rights reasons?

Comments are closed.