Opposite returns
Even in the home basin, in Austria, Red Bull continues to experience a two-faced season: dominant with Max Verstappen, for the moment the absolute master of the Styrian Ring, and disappointing with Sergio Perez, always last in the mini-championship of the best four teams. While the Dutch grinds out victories, poles and records, the Mexican is forced to make an incredible effort just to get into Q3.
From this point of view, yesterday’s qualifying was emblematic. Perez ran out of four sets of new soft tires between Q1 and Q2, remaining without it for the final and decisive part of the session. A situation that forced him to qualify only in eighth place, making his life a lot more complicated in view of this afternoon’s race, in which he will be called upon to make a difficult comeback.
Horner’s appeal
“It was a tough weekend – Checo acknowledged at the end of the day – we didn’t have the necessary margins in the early stages of Q1 and Q2 and we ended up using more sets of new tires than we wanted and we only got to Q3 on used tyres. We had a better pace than we were able to show today., but unfortunately we weren’t confident enough during the sessions to be able to save any sets for Q3. We made the right changes and learned a lot from the Sprint race – he concluded – which is good. I think the race will be very close, it will be an interesting battle where anything can happen“.
Perez also asked for a ‘wake-up call’ Christian Hornerwhich seemed a little impatient with the team’s second driver after yet another performance below expectations: “We will need Checo to have a good racebecause the McLarens, the Ferraris and the Mercedes are right there with us”. For the moment, however, Verstappen, up front, seems perfectly capable of continuing to fend for himself.
