Red Bull hit their first snag of 2024 in the third race of the season. Max Verstappen’s RB20 suffered a “snappy” brake issue that caused a ‘handbrake’-like effect, leading to a DNF in Lap 3 of the Australian GP. It paved the way for Carlos Sainz’s heroic win while Sergio Perez in the other Red Bull couldn’t do better than P5. But worse than the P5 finish was his comment on teammate Max Verstappen which hasn’t gone down well with Jos Verstappen’s former manager.

The Mexican racer suffered damage to his Red Bull’s underbody (the floor of the car) in Melbourne. As a result, he couldn’t match up with the Ferraris and McLarens ahead. In a post-race interview, he addressed the cause of the Red Bull’s lack of pace around Albert Park. While doing so, he emphasized that even if Verstappen had not retired, there was no chance he would’ve won the race.

That statement did please Max’s father Jos Verstappen’s former confidante, Frans Verschuur. “He had problems with the floor afterward, so I understand why he takes P5”, Verschuur said on the Aan Tafel podcast, as quoted by f1maximaal. The Dutch expert then irritably slammed Perez’s stance. “He shouldn’t have said that, I thought that was such a stupid statement. Bah.”

“Yes, that wasn’t strong,” added co-guest and Lamborghini factory driver Jeroen Mul. “He really made it a team problem.”

While Perez’s statement caused a stir for some people, his lack of a better performance was caused by Red Bull’s rare reliability problems. Hence, Helmut Marko defended his driver.

Helmut Marko defends Sergio Perez from criticism

After the Australian GP, critics were ready to pounce on Sergio Perez’s lackluster P5 finish. F1 Analyst Marc Priestley even went so far as to question what Red Bull have if not for Max Verstappen. But Team Advisor Helmut Marko came to his rescue in a later.

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“You have to realize that Checo [Perez] delivered three good races this year,” Marko told Laola1. “The fact that he fell back so much in Melbourne was due to the damaged underbody and tire degradation.”

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