At the Japanese Grand Prix, world champion Max Verstappen achieved his 13th victory of the season in a superior manner and thus secured Red Bull the constructors’ world championship in Formula 1. His teammate Sergio Perez, who experienced an absolute disaster in Suzuka, had no part in this. Former F1 driver and current TV expert Ralf Schumacher now even believes that the Mexican will be thrown out early.
Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez are currently worlds apart. While Verstappen once again exuded absolute dominance in Suzuka after the bad previous week in Singapore and was unstoppable in the Japan race, Checo Perez made several major mistakes that completely ruined his race.
Even in qualifying, the Mexican was a whopping seven tenths of a second behind world champion Verstappen, fifth on the grid in the Red Bull, his first big defeat of the race weekend.
The actual race was over for Perez after just 15 laps. At this point he had already had two racing accidents with Lewis Hamilton and Kevin Magnussen and had also received a five-second time penalty twice. He gave up early while lying in 19th place, before he briefly pulled out again laps later to serve his second time penalty and then finally give up.
Another poor performance from the 33-year-old, who hasn’t won a race since April and has finished behind Max Verstappen in the second Red Bull every time since then, could cost Perez the cockpit this season. At least that’s what “Sky” expert and ex-driver Ralf Schumacher now thinks is conceivable.
“If I were a team boss today and had to try something out, I would try something out now,” the 47-year-old believes in the possibility that Formula 1 newcomer Liam Lawson could take over for Perez in the middle of the season and then become a regular driver next year to be on the world champion team.
Lawson recently took part in his first four Formula 1 races because regular driver Daniel Ricciardo was injured at AlphaTauri. The rookie took advantage of his chance and drew attention to himself, among other things, with ninth place in Singapore.
Incredible discrepancy between the two Red Bull drivers
Red Bull Motorsport Director Dr. Helmut Marko emphasized on the “Sky” microphone until the end that Sergio Perez still had a valid contract, so being kicked out in the middle of the year wouldn’t be that easy. For Ralf Schumacher, however, this is no longer a criterion due to Checo’s poor performance.
“Nothing is fixed in Formula 1 when you are so bad compared to your teammate. And that is the case with Perez,” rumbled the six-time Grand Prix winner.
Liam Lawson would probably be able to take on the role of Verstappen’s new teammate, emphasized the younger brother of record world champion Michael Schumacher: “He can’t do much damage. I think that makes sense.”
After Verstappen’s renewed demonstration of power in Suzuka, the score between him and Perez in the drivers’ standings is now 400:223 – an incredible discrepancy.