Sergio Perez’s last Red Bull race? Data discovery shows why he wasn’t fully to blame

Sergio Pérez finished P7 in the Belgian GP after George Russell’s disqualification. The Red Bull driver had a great chance from P2 to quell rumours of his exit from the team, but the reality is that a poor strategy and his own underperformance may have cost him his seat.

The Mexican started from P2, but was quickly overtaken by Lewis Hamilton at the start. Still, the pace in his first stint was not bad and he remained in podium position despite reporting battery problems in post-race statements.

Last Red Bull race for Sergio Perez?

Before his first stop, Perez was +2.4s behind Charles Leclerc in P2 and +4.6s behind leader Hamilton. In addition, Checo was ahead of Oscar Piastri’s McLaren by a comfortable gap of +1.6s to avoid him entering the DRS zone.

However, Red Bull’s tyre choice did not help Perez’s race at all. Of the ‘Big Four’ teams, Red Bull was the only team with a single set of hard tyres available for the Spa-Francorchamps race.

In addition, Perez was on the medium tyre in the second stint while all his rivals around him were on a hard tyre, which was the key compound of the race and eventually compromised all his hopes in a race where any strategy or driving mistake could cost several positions.

With low degradation and very consistent pace, the hard proved to be a much better option than the medium which had a very short tyre life.

Even Max Verstappen in his final stint on the attack struggled on the medium tyre, failing to overtake Charles Leclerc on the older hard and holding off Lando Norris by a few tenths of a second for several laps to eventually finish P5.

After his first stop, Perez held virtual P3, but was quickly overtaken by Piastri on the hard tyre. In just one lap, the Australian achieved what he had failed to do in 10 laps under equal conditions at the start of the race.

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The best comparison that can be made to understand the difference in pace between the hard and medium tyre in the first 15 laps of the race is with Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris. The Ferrari driver started the race on the hard and by lap 10 he started to set better lap times than Norris in the McLaren.

On lap 21, after 10 laps on the medium tyre Perez’s pace dropped and he was quickly overtaken by George Russell as well. With Max Verstappen right behind him, Red Bull decided to make his second pit stop with the Mexican and put on the hard tyre with 22 laps to go.

After this stop, Perez’s race was totally compromised. In such a tight pack and having stopped so early to make his second pit stop, everyone was going to have a tyre advantage over him. Furthermore, his pace on the new hard was not at all much better than Verstappen’s.

And the RB20’s pace was far from impressive, which saw him quickly succumb to Lando Norris after the McLaren driver’s stop and eventually drop to P8 after a great overtake by Carlos Sainz on lap 40.

Certainly, more was expected from Checo starting from P2, whose race progression went from bad to worse. But the strategy chosen by Red Bull, mostly conditioned by the tyre sets available before the race, was not at all optimum.

Until the first stop, in equal conditions with his rivals, a podium finish was still possible. But without being able to play on a level playing field for the rest of the stints, his possible last race with Red Bull was really a difficult one to handle with a very poor final stint.

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