What Perez's Jeddah joy means for F1’s 2023 hopes for a real title fight

“I would say arguably that was Checo's best grand prix to be honest with you.”

Christian Horner being very honest after Sergio Perez’s victory in last weekend’s 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. But let’s definitely argue with his point. After all, neither of Perez’s outstanding victories in the 2020 Sakhir GP for Racing Point nor his 2022 Singapore GP Red Bull triumph contained an awful start gaffe that allowed a slower car to seize a lead it, really, had no right to.

In the latter event, Perez actually launched so well in the slippery conditions he overtook pole-departing Charles Leclerc, then drove brilliantly around his safety car cheekiness as the Ferrari driver threw his car at every Marina Bay wall in a fruitless effort to repass. Perez was unruffled.

And that is how he ended the Jeddah race just gone – holding off a charging Max Verstappen to take the fifth F1 career win. Remarkably, four of these have come at street tracks, leading to many anointing Perez as a street track master.

It’s not inaccurate. Four of his Force India podiums show he’s been doing well on them for years (and there was his 2012 second place for Sauber at Montreal’s semi-street track too). His comfort with understeer is rewarded when venues such as these require a stable front end to aid driver precision.

At the same time, all of Perez’s street track wins have come after a rival has hit trouble either in those races or in qualifying. And yet, he is also very successful at the high-speed Jeddah ‘street’ track (that is a purpose-built facility masquerading as a one). He now has two Saudi poles and a victory, which should be two wins given he was robbed of a first in 2022 by unfortunate safety car pitstop timing here.

The combination of Perez’s typical street track prowess and his affinity with the Jeddah layout no doubt helped him halt Verstappen’s advances. But it was an impressive feat altogether. Many F1 observers surely had the same response to Verstappen’s irresistible climb to second behind his team-mate from 15th on the grid as several of us here at Autosport. Namely: ‘here we go again’, ‘Verstappen’s got this’.

After Verstappen's Q2 drama, Perez stormed to second consecutive Jeddah pole

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

And yet, over the 10 laps after he passed Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin at the race's halfway point and before he began reporting the vibrations he feared was a reoccurrence of the driveshaft failure that had dumped him out in Q2, Verstappen had only closed the Perez’s 5.4s lead by one second. Then came Verstappen’s reliability fear, which was followed by Perez reporting a long brake pedal. They eased off their charges a touch and instead turned their attentions to sealing the fastest lap.

This has been blown up into something of a saga by social media sleuths. Because, two laps from home, Perez was informed he provisionally had the fastest lap and its bonus point. Then on the slowing down lap, engineer Hugh Bird informed him he’d been “pipped” to the accolade and its bonus point. “Ah, great,” came a reply dripping in sarcasm.

In the other RB19, Verstappen’s lap 46 of 50 request to be told what the fastest lap currently was – Perez’s race personal best of 1m32.188s – was rebuffed by his engineer (also Red Bull’s overall engineering chief) Gianpiero Lambiase.

“Err... we are not concerned about that at the moment, Max,” Lambiase told the double world champion. He replied: “Yeah, but I am.”

If wins for rival squads are unlikely bar in the rare events where Red Bull gets things wrong, F1 needs Perez to take things to Verstappen

Then, just a few corners later, Verstappen got the information he wanted and four laps further on he beat Perez’s time by 0.282s to nick the bonus point and retain the championship lead.

Obviously, an utterly massive conspiracy for those who compelled to see one. But, a) there may indeed have been a decision made at Red Bull we’re so far unaware of regarding Verstappen chasing the fastest lap, with Perez later saying cryptically “I got certainly different information” in the post-race press conference.

Plus, b) with 10 laps to go Verstappen was lapping around half a second faster than the 1m33.0s Lambiase was regularly ordering him to target. Perez, having queried why his team-mate was going quicker than the target he’d also received, was told he could up his pace again. It was all very Brazil 2022 – Verstappen ignoring his team’s orders.

Added interest in this course of events may be reflecting the fears that Verstappen is simply going to waltz to a third successive title in 2023. That, with no opposition from other teams so far, other storylines are being sought out. Perhaps, Perez is providing one.

Perez lost the battle for fastest lap, but held off Verstappen to win

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

He explained his complaints about Red Bull’s searing pace late in the Jeddah race was because he was concerned about the reliability issues cropping up and was also feeling “some strange vibrations”. But it’s worth recalling that Verstappen queried further instructions regarding pace late in the Bahrain race he and Perez were dominating – the Dutchman concerned both cars must be circulating at the same pace if Red Bull wanted them brought home under no strain.

It all harks back the fractious relationship between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg during their days dominating F1 for Mercedes in the last decade just as the Red Bull duo are doing now. And, with Red Bull dominance looking set to become just as tedious as it was with Mercedes to everyone outside those respective camps and fervent fanbases, if Verstappen vs Perez were to get anywhere near close to that level of competition and bitterness then the 2023 spectacle would surely be improved.

If wins for rival squads are unlikely bar in the rare events where Red Bull gets things wrong, F1 needs Perez to take things to Verstappen. But, so far, his typical gap to his team-mate from their time sharing the Red Bull garage suggests their battle will be far more along the lines of Valtteri Bottas versus Hamilton. That Perez, on his best day, can produce a performance that might topple Verstappen. But that these are few and far between.

Perez’s late Jeddah race pace was impressive. But it was still a surprise on turf where he is typically excellent. He was also naive to assume his team-mate wouldn’t chase the fastest lap on the final tour given everything F1 knows about Verstappen’s will to win and his actions in the team orders spat in Brazil last year.

Now, Perez needs to replicate his Jeddah form elsewhere and do it regularly if he is to show he can be what F1 needs him to be in 2023. That starts in next up Australia – where, just as he did in Bahrain (and in 2022 too), as well as last weekend, he made a slow start that let a slower rival get ahead at the most recent Albert Park race. Perez’s first job is to break his bad start habit and get launching more often as he did so well in Singapore last year.

Melbourne was also the scene of Red Bull’s reliability nightmare with Verstappen in 2022. It heads down under aware its dominant package is surprisingly fragile, but also knowing it went on to make the RB18 rather bulletproof bar Perez’s subsequent Canada gearbox stoppage.

Ultimately, it can’t be forgotten that had Verstappen’s qualifying issue not happened in Jeddah, he appeared set for pole and race victory judging by his crushing practice performances. That's what Perez is up against and it's him who still needs to prove he is a true title contender.

Perez was beaten off the line by Alonso, a point he must address moving forward

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images