The driver who ended the curse of Red Bull’s second F1 seat

Being Max Verstappen’s team-mate has been the undoing of several drivers, but Sergio Perez has finally made the job his own. Here’s how the Mexican has succeeded where Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon before him stumbled

Matt Kew Jul 21, 2022, 10:14 AM

Upd: Jul 21, 2022, 10:25 AM

For two weeks earlier this season, Sergio Perez achieved something no Red Bull driver had managed since Daniel Ricciardo in 2018. He made people, just for a moment, entertain the idea that a team-mate might have a shot at beating Max Verstappen in the standings. The Mexican outqualified his reigning champion team-mate in Monaco to tee up a fine victory. Next time out in Azerbaijan, he again pipped Verstappen over a lap to snare the higher grid spot. In that window, he was more effectively mastering the ground-effect RB18 and had the momentum.

Ultimately, whatever hype there was proved short-lived. The following day in Baku, Perez showed a rare case of mismanaging his tyres and soon had to move over, enabling Verstappen to sail by for what would become the win. Since then, the assumed competitive order has been restored and now a considerable swing would be required for Perez to pip his colleague, who is 57 points ahead in the championship table.

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Author Matt Kew

Matt Kew is Autosport’s F1 Editor, a role he has held since March 2022 following stints covering Formula E, Extreme E and the British Touring Car Championship.

Matt joined Autosport in 2018 to work predominantly on the magazine, but his relentless quoting of Alan Partridge meant office colleagues soon thought he would be better-suited to increased field work.

Needless to say, Matt had the last laugh when he won the Motorsport UK Young Journalist of the Year Award in 2019.

His interest in motorsport was sparked by regular trips to watch ASCAR crash around Rockingham’s banked oval.

Matt read politics and philosophy at the University of Sheffield - receiving first-class honours for his dissertation assessing the lack of female participation in top-tier motor racing.

He covered a wide variety of national race and rally meetings for Autosport as a freelancer before joining full-time. His best efforts to argue the merits of historic racing are undone by a questionable taste in music and James Bond actors.