Sergio Perez catches McLaren attention with one Red Bull title at risk

Oscar Piastri says McLaren are “confident” of beating Red Bull to the F1 2024 Constructors’ title with Sergio Perez currently struggling to support team-mate Max Verstappen.

Despite signing a new two-year contract as recently as last month, Perez has found his Red Bull seat come under growing scrutiny over recent weeks having scored just 15 points across the last six races.

Sergio Perez the key to McLaren’s F1 2024 title hopes?

PlanetF1.com understands that a clause contained in Perez’s revised deal will allow Red Bull to drop the Mexican driver during the summer break if he is 100 points adrift of Verstappen.

Perez currently trails his team-mate by 137 points ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, the penultimate race before the August shutdown.

Perez’s lack of contribution has given McLaren hope that they could still win the F1 2024 Constructors’ Championship, with the Woking-based team currently in third place on 295 points – seven behind Ferrari and 78 adrift of Red Bull.

F1 2024: Head-to-head battles between team-mates

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Appearing in Thursday’s press conference in Budapest, Piastri revealed that McLaren are hopeful of overhauling both Ferrari and Red Bull before the end of the season.

And he believes Perez’s struggles could be decisive, with “only Max scoring” consistent points for Red Bull at the moment.

He told reporters: “I think we’re confident in our whole team, drivers, car, everyone around us.

“I think we’ve got a lot of confidence. We’ve scored the most points of any team in the last six races and we’re making up ground on everyone around us.

“Obviously the gap to Ferrari now in the Constructors’ Championship is very small, we’re reducing it to Red Bull.

“Of course, at the moment it’s really only Max scoring most of the points there, so we can’t for granted that it’s always going to be like that and we need to still be maximising what we can do to score the most amount of points for both cars.

“But we’re definitely confident that we’re in the fight. I think it’d be incredibly pessimistic to not be optimistic of our chances later in the year.

“We know it’s not going to be an easy task, of course, and things can turn around very quickly, but we’re making the right moves at the moment and making good progress, so we’re definitely in the fight.”

Piastri’s comments come after chief executive Zak Brown claimed that Perez’s poor performances are “opening the window” for McLaren to challenge for Constructors’ title glory in F1 2024.

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com at the recent British Grand Prix, he said: “I think it’s going to be dependent upon Perez at the end of the day.

“Because you’ve just got to assume Max is going to be first, second or third at every race. On the balance of the year, probably more first.

“Sergio underperforming is what’s opening the window for us.

“I think, if we have the same points gain we had the last six races, the balance of the year, we’d get the job done.”

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