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Formula One F1 – French Grand Prix – Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet, France – June 20, 2021 Red Bull’s Max Verstappen celebrates with sparkling wine on the podium after winning the race alongside third placed Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and second placed Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton REUTERS/Yves Herman
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Formula One F1 – French Grand Prix – Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet, France – June 20, 2021 Red Bull’s Max Verstappen celebrates with sparkling wine on the podium after winning the race alongside third placed Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and second placed Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton REUTERS/Yves Herman
After a shaky start to the 2021 season, Sergio Perez seems to be a more confident driver at Red Bull. With the Mexican taking his first win with the Austrian outfit in Baku, the Mexican followed it up with his second podium of the season in Le Castellet on Sunday.
Although Perez jumped up the Drivers’ Championship with these results, many would believe his role at Red Bull is to play second fiddle to Max Verstappen. Ahead of the Styrian Grand Prix, the Mexican clarified what Red Bull told him.
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Sergio Perez admits he can challenge Max Verstappen
Although the Mexican took an impressive P3 finish in France, Perez let Verstappen by in Lap 36. This helped the Dutchman get clean air to catch Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas ahead of him. Despite two pit stops, Verstappen chased Hamilton down, passing him in the penultimate lap.
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Formula One F1 – Azerbaijan Grand Prix – Baku City Circuit, Baku, Azerbaijan – June 6, 2021 Red Bull’s Sergio Perez celebrates with sparkling wine on the podium after winning the race Pool via REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
While many would believe Perez’s role comes down to helping Verstappen get more points in the title fight, he admits Red Bull did not put a clause where he cannot compete against the Dutchman at any point in time.
The Mexican said, “Yes. There is no passage in my contract that says I can’t fight Max. The team has already shown that both sides of the garage get full support.” (Quotes translated from Google)
The 31-year-old believes the Austrian outfit will get better as confidence builds. He said, “And the more confidence the team gets and the more often Red Bull sees that we are both doing well, the more confidence we will have on both sides of the garage.”
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Perez: At the moment, we are all working very well together
Although he almost ended up without a seat for 2021, Perez believes the move to Red Bull is working very well for him. He believes the only thing on his mind is to focus and achieve as much success as possible.
The Mexican said, “At the moment we are working very well together and we still have a long way to go, so I just need to focus, improve myself and then we’ll see how far we can get.”
With the next race in the Styrian mountains, Perez will look to continue his good run of form. In addition, Red Bull will be back in their home race after a decent outing in 2020. Can the Mexican take his third podium finish in a row on June 27th?
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