(L to R): Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez, Red Bull, Albert Park, 2022

Perez “a lot happier” in 2022 car – Verstappen

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In the round-up: Max Verstappen believes team mate Sergio Perez is showing stronger results due to being more comfortable with this year’s Red Bull car.

In brief

Second year at Red Bull easier for Perez – Verstappen

Max Verstappen says that Sergio Perez seems much more comfortable in the team’s 2022 car than he was in 2021.

“I think it helps, of course, to have a year with the team,” explained Verstappen. “And I think, of course, with the new rule changes, everyone had to start from zero really.

“It seems like he is a lot happier in the car, so that’s really good for the team,” Verstappen continued.

Perez scored the first pole position of his career in the second round of the season at Jeddah Corniche Circuit

No Haas upgrade for “four or five races”

Haas team principal Günther Steiner said that the team has decided against bringing upgrades to this weekend’s race, as many other teams are, in favour of trying to understand their current car’s performance better.

“We have decided to wait a little bit longer with upgrades as I still think we have performance in the car without them which we have to get on the track,” he said. “Sometimes we achieve it, sometimes we don’t.

“We have a good upgrades package in about four or five races coming, so I’m confident about that and what the other ones are bringing, as of right now I don’t know, but I will know a lot more next Monday.”

Gasly had floor damage before Alonso contact in Miami

Pierre Gasly had suffered damage to the floor of his AlphaTauri during the Miami Grand Prix before his collision with Fernando Alonso.

“The race was difficult because, from very early on, I had a big hole in the floor, losing quite a bit of downforce, but even so I could fight for seventh or eighth place with the Alpines, which was encouraging,” Gasly said. However, the lap 39 contact with Alonso was when his race unravelled, as he collided with McLaren driver Lando Norris shortly afterwards.

“It was going quite well in fact, until my contact with Fernando,” Gasly continued. “That ruined my race, and it was very disappointing, as we’d had a solid weekend up to that point. We deserved some points, so it was a shame, but the performance is clearly there and there’s no reason why we can’t have some good results in the upcoming races.”

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Comment of the day

After the FIA’s new race direction team was established in F1 in 2022, Ciaran says that it’s good to see Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas in a more anonymous role and able to focus on the job’s requirements more than its dramatic spectacle:

Communication and implementation of the rules are significantly improved so far this year. Most fans will have no idea who Wittich and Freitas are, and the longer it stays that way, the better.

I’d be curious to see if teams start to complain less, as Alpine did for Alonso’s penalty, once they see the fruitlessness of it. Old habits die hard, and if the championship battle flares up, I suspect Red Bull in particular will be vocal when it suits them. Fingers crossed that the race directors don’t yield to whatever pressure they might get put under.
@ciaran

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Gombosco!

Author information

Hazel Southwell
Hazel is a motorsport and automotive journalist with a particular interest in hybrid systems, electrification, batteries and new fuel technologies....

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11 comments on “Perez “a lot happier” in 2022 car – Verstappen”

  1. Certainly & evidently easier.

    I wonder how the upgrade wait might affect their pecking order positioning.

    How did Gasly manage to get floor damage even before the contact that ultimately proved a contributor to the Norris collision?

    I share COTD’s views, although RDs are less-pressured now that TPs can’t contact them anymore.

  2. How many fake different teams is VAG going to field at LeMans?

  3. Hi, is interesting information for racing fans. Anything can happen before it hits the finish line!

  4. Who knew PER was top team material all along. Stuck in the midfield so long. Imagine if he would have come up in the Red Bull ecosystem. Wonderful compliment to Verstappen’s arsenal.

    1. I mean he score a podium (and in a Sauber nonetheless) in his second season. After that imho he held up pretty nicely in a subpar McLaren against Jenson in 2013 and was very harshly dropped after just one year. He delivered above and beyond in his Force India RP years. Probably could have achieved more was he given a top car earlier in his career but I’m not surprised he does pretty well next to Max now, happy for him

      1. 3 podiums in 2012, Malaysia, Canada and Monza

        1. Your memory is much better than mine @ankita. At the same time it further underlines my point. Thanks

  5. New baby Emilio will slow Checo down… each child’s worth half a second a lap, or whatever

  6. @ciaran Regarding your cotd I also wonder, even if things get heated, what we will be allowed to hear wrt radio comm in terms of a narrative that F1 will want to feed us by their selectivity. Will that change given last year’s events? I happen to disagree that Masi was pressured into the decisions that he made in AD…at least not pressured by CH or TW, but rather there was already a pressure there from the general sentiment that has been floating around for numerous seasons to ‘let them race’ and not have such a thrilling season end behind a safety car.

    Masi knew all along that of course team principals are going to speak out in order to try to favour their own team. He knew all along his job was to be neutral with that. But of course the way they timed the radio comms for us to hear, it made it sound like Masi reacted and leaned towards Horner’s wishes. I even wonder if the reason they have somewhat sheltered Masi (albeit letting him go from the position but wanting to re-purpose him) is that F1 itself helped shape the narrative that Masi was influenced by TPs. What if we had not been allowed to hear any of the radio comm? Or what if once the time the radio was published the real-time chronology of it would have shown Masi was indeed not influenced nor made a decision in immediate reaction to something CH or TW said?

    1. Just look at Baku…everyone seemd okay with what happened there.
      Stroll’s trye blew and Masi raised yellow flags, the car got re-routed through pitlane for around 15 minutes, the race never stopped. Than three laps before the end when Max suffered from similar misfortune the race was red flagged.

      Never in the history of F1 a race was red flagged without any safety reasons or this late in the race, Masi explained “it was in the best intrest of the sport”. Hamilton was in P3 before they crashed and obviously was handed a golden oppertunity to turn it into a P1….. Lewis failed dramatically, but it doesn’t take away Masi just made a decision ‘in the best intrest of the sport” after an appeal from ALL driver not to have races die under SC.

      Masi was new, he applied the rules in such a way the crowd got what they payed for…cars racing, but somehow Mercedes, or better Lewis fans, including Toto and Lewis themselves where more than happy with Baku, but no som much with abu Dhabi. Masi’s decision in Abu Dhabi only could have had an effect on Sainz race…but he finished 3rd, 6 sec behind. Toto and Lewis made a lot of noise, but that wasn’t really new in 2021, in the end Lewis lost the championship in races like Monaco, Abu Dhabi, Belgium, Hungary, Turkey….not Abu Dhabi.

  7. Le Mans is going to be epic. Ferrari, Peugeot, Toyota, Porsche, Audi, Acura, Cadillac, Ligier and now Lambo!

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