Sergio Perez ‘may well be most upset’ after data breakdown from Red Bull staff member

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez.

Even if Sergio Perez may be “most upset” with his claim, Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan explained how marginal gains make up the half-a-second per lap difference he sees between Perez and Max Verstappen.

Perez has been Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate since 2021 through all of Verstappen’s title-winning years so far, at no point managing to mount a challenge for the crown against the dominant Dutchman.

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Perez has faced increased scrutiny in recent months following a fresh alarming slump in form, having now fallen 137 points behind Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship.

Monaghan, speaking on the Beyond the Grid podcast, felt it was “not a controversial statement” to say that Verstappen is the quicker of Red Bull’s two drivers, explaining that small gains per corner for Verstappen create an overall difference of around half a second per lap in his opinion.

It is an opinion and data breakdown which Monaghan knows may not sit too well with Perez.

“I wouldn’t want to be rude to Checo, and he may well bite my head off if he was sat here, but I’d say, in general, Max is a little bit quicker than Checo,” said Monaghan.

“For me, that’s not a controversial statement. Checo may well be most upset with me. Half a second, on average.

“Let’s say most circuits have 20 corners, look at that as an increment per corner. It is minute, the difference, per corner. Maybe he pulls half a tenth in one corner? It borders on trivial, yet it adds up through a lap. Just to get to that little bit more.

“[Max] gets to the limit and stays that little bit closer to it, and doesn’t massively overstep it in qualifying when you overdrive the thing. If that’s the difference, then the average comes out as a number at the end. If that’s the objective measurement, so be it. I think there’s a little bit more to it, perhaps, but he’s pretty good, isn’t he?”

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Monaghan, though, does believe Perez succeeds in keeping Verstappen “honest” as his Red Bull team-mate, arguing the driver that Perez replaced, Alex Albon, did the same at times.

“He’s a phenomenal talent, Max, there’s no doubt about it,” Monaghan stated, “and I wouldn’t say that in a detrimental way to Checo, because he keeps Max honest.

“And occasionally, Alex would keep him honest as well. Austria ’20, I think Alex was heading for the lead of the race, had a little bump with Lewis [Hamilton].

“But Max tends to put himself in a situation where he gets what he wants out of a race. Zandvoort last year, wet, dry, who comes out one and two? Max and Fernando [Alonso]. Everybody else is in walls and gravel and all sorts, and those two emerge.”

Verstappen currently leads the F1 2024 Drivers’ Championship by 84 points over McLaren’s Lando Norris as he bids to match Sebastian Vettel’s streak of four successive titles in Red Bull colours.

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