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Sergio Perez has been told to watch his back after another stinker of a weekend in Canada. The Mexican had another poor race weekend, where once again his qualifying was just not up to par. He suffered another early exit and could not make it to Q3. As a result, the Red Bull driver started the race outside of the top 10, behind even the two Ferrari drivers, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
What was a bit surprising to see was Sergio Perez not making any impression on Leclerc and Sainz in front of him, and as a result, he could only finish the race in P6. The result was just not what you would expect from a driver, especially if his teammate Max Verstappen cruised to another win at the front.
Talking about Sergio Perez, Le Mans winner Richard Bradley felt that Sergio Perez's struggles in qualifying were a bad sign for the Mexican, especially for a team like Red Bull notorious for replacing drivers on a whim.
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On the 'On Track' podcast, he said:
“The bigger thing for me, and just to put this stat into perspective, he didn’t make Q3 again. Now, Valtteri Bottas when he was at Mercedes, and this is an unbelievable stat, he made a 100% Q3 record in his time at Mercedes."
He continued:
"When you think about it, that is mind-blowing. Imagine when you’re Lewis and you’re fighting Max for the championship, and you know you’re going to have that rear gunner there consistently all the time."
He added:
“At the minute Max is on a level where it doesn’t seem to matter, but it will change at some point. Let’s face it, Max looks unstoppable at the minute."
Bradley concluded:
"But if it’s the case where Max is going to need a rear gunner, Sergio needs to up his game a bit, especially when you’ve got a lot of other people now who are starting to perform in a seriously heavy way. Let’s be honest, Red Bull is the least secure seat on the grid.”
Sergio Perez could not even catch the Ferrari drivers
Touching on another key point, Richard said that it was a huge surprise to see Perez not even catching up with the Ferrari drivers or challenging them in any way.
The Mexican was on the same strategy as Sainz and Leclerc and could not challenge them at any stage of the race.
He said:
“The worrying thing for me is, yeah, okay, [Sergio Perez] made up a load of places from where he started and everything, but in the race, he couldn’t catch the Ferraris.”
Perez is now 69 points behind Max Verstappen in the championship, and the race in Canada is really a wake-up call if the Mexican ever needed one.
