Sergio Pérez finished seventh in the Belgium GP after George Russell was disqualified. The Red Bull driver had a great opportunity to move from P2 to quell rumours about his departure from the team, but the truth is that a bad strategy and his own poor performance could have cost him his job.
The Mexican started from P2, but was temporarily overtaken by Lewis Hamilton at the start. Still, the speed in his first stint wasn’t bad and he stayed on the podium despite the battery issues reported in post-race statements.
Before his first pit stop, Pérez was 2. 4 seconds behind Charles Leclerc in P2 and 4. 6 seconds behind leader Hamilton. In addition, Checo overtook Oscar Piastri’s McLaren for a comfortable 1. 6 seconds to prevent it from entering the DRS zone.
However, Red Bull’s tire selection did not help Perez’s race at all. Among the “Big Four”, Red Bull is the only team that only has one set of hard tires for the Spa-Francorchamps race.
In addition, Pérez was on medium tyres in the second stint while all his rivals around him were on hard tyres, which were the key compound of the race and which in the end compromised all his hopes in a race where any strategy or driving error can take its toll. he affectionately. various positions.
With low degradation and a very constant pace, the hard proved to be much better than the medium, which had a very short tire life.
Even Max Verstappen in his last attack stint had problems with the medium tyre, he could not overtake Charles Leclerc on the older tyre and kept Lando Norris at bay for a few tenths of a second for several laps to finish in fifth position.
After his first stop, Pérez was virtually in third place, but was temporarily overtaken by Piastri on hard tires. In a single lap, the Australian achieved what he had not been able to do in 10 laps in the same terms at the beginning of the race.
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The most productive comparison that can be made to perceive the difference in speed between the hard and medium tires in the first 15 laps of the race is with Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris. The Ferrari driver forced the race on the hard course and on lap 10 he began to set better times than Norris in the McLaren.
On lap 21, after 10 laps on medium tyres, Perez’s speed dropped and he was also temporarily overtaken by George Russell. With Max Verstappen by his side, Red Bull made the decision to make his second pit stop with the Mexican and switched to the hards. tires with 22 laps to go.
After this stop, Perez’s career was totally compromised. In such a tight box and after avoiding so early to make his second pit stop, everyone is going to have a tyre merit on him. In addition, his speed on the new hard is nothing superior to Verstappen’s.
And the RB20’s speed is far from impressive, which saw it temporarily succumb to Lando Norris after the McLaren driver stopped and finally drop to eighth position after a very good overtake through Carlos Sainz on lap 40.
It is true that we expected more from Checo starting from P2, whose evolution in the race went from bad to worse. But the strategy chosen through Red Bull, conditioned in large part by the sets of tires available before the race, was not optimal at all. .
Until the first stop, tied with his rivals, a podium was still possible. But without being able to play on equal terms for the rest of the stints, his last race with Red Bull was difficult to manage with a very poor final stint.
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