I keep hearing that Checo Isn’t performing well.
I see it this way: so far this year, he has had 2 wins, 5 podiums, 2 pole positions, 2 fastest laps, and a 1st and 2nd in sprint races.
With the exception of Monaco, he has finished in the top 6.
Sure, he’s no Max Verstappen, and the team knows that, but he is putting his Red Bull towards the top pretty consistently. He gets screwed sometimes in qualifying, but he makes it up and scores good points for the team.
He’s second in the driver’s championship pretty handily as well.
Maybe I’m missing some context, so I’d like to know what the rest of you think about it.
In a clean race, that RB should be on the podium every time. Less than that is subpar.
His teammate has 5 straight dominant easy wins while he barely makes q2 and takes half the race to get to points. No one is being too hard, he’s had bright spots and wins because HE BLOODY WELL SHOULD WHEN HES IN THE FASTEST CAR ON THE TRACK
Yeah he’s having an excellent season. He’s number two in the driver standings (for now!) and Red Bull is 1 in the constructor. I think RBR is perfectly happy with those results WHILE also keeping an eye on his recent issues.
Checos recent performances won’t work once there’s another team challenging Red Bull. But for now, they’re dominant enough to make it work.
This is why they should be hard on him. They have an advantage but for how long. Although it seems they are focusing on next year already (did Red Bull bring any upgrades to the car this year, I feel like there was only one), this still can become tight if there are a couple of DNFs for Max/Checo and others bring upgrades that close the gap significantly…especially if Checo does not return to his prior form and keeps getting knocked out q2/q3 and not finishing in top 3.
If Red Bull were in a tight battle with the constructors Checo would easily cost them the title.
I feel like he’s actually been getting a pass because its not been a tight battle between Red Bull and someone else.
Only recently when he went from mediocre to absolutely abysmal did people start to really notice. Because how could you not.
I don’t like to dogpile drivers. But Perez is having a shocker when you consider the car he is driving. He’s not got into Q3 in how many races? 6 now? That alone shows how much he is underperforming. How many times has he finished behind multiple objectively slower cars? I was all aboard the hype train earlier in the year but I’m not sure I can remember a hype train derailing in such an epic way (oh wait, Ferrari last year).
