Pérez narrowly avoided abandonment in Miami

In Miami, Red Bull seemed better placed than Ferrari in the fight for victory. With a formidable top speed, which notably prevented Charles Leclerc from getting close enough to Max Verstappen to truly worry him. However, the Austrian team leaves Florida with only a 4th place for Sergio Pérez and concedes a double podium to Ferrari.

A double podium for the Scuderia, largely explained by a problem encountered on the Mexican’s car, which caused him to lose precious seconds to the red cars at a crucial moment in the race. Without that, as Pérez himself admits, a Red Bull double was highly feasible.

But on the other hand, the outcome could have been much worse for Red Bull. Christian Horner revealed that Checo could have simply retired due to this new issue encountered on the RB18. It was very close [to retirement]. We had to move the sensors to fix the problem. So, we will be working closely with HRC [Honda’s engine division] to try to understand and, of course, make sure it doesn’t happen again in the future.

The problem has been identified, and Horner indicates that Pérez would lose a lot of time afterwards. He had a problem with a sensor on one of the cylinders. The guys managed to move the sensors, but he probably lost 20 kilowatts of power as a result. Even with the advantage of the new tires he had, he was probably half a second off what the car was capable of on the straight lines. And I think that without that, he probably would have finished P2.