Sergio Perez affirms that Carlos Sainz would have won the race even without Max Verstappen’s retirement

Shortly after the start of the Australian Grand Prix, in which Max Verstappen started in pole position, Carlos Sainz overtook the Dutchman to take the lead. Just after, it was learned that the Red Bull driver had to retire due to a problem with a rear brake. The rest of the story, we know it: Carlos Sainz won the Australian Grand Prix and Ferrari signed a double thanks to Charles Leclerc’s second place finish. On his side, Sergio Perez finished fifth.

On Sky Sports F1’s microphone, the Mexican stated that Ferrari would have won the race, even if his teammate had not retired. « Unfortunately, we didn’t have the pace. From the beginning, we could see that Ferrari and McLaren had an edge over us. I think we just can’t find the balance in a given window », he explained.

According to Sergio Perez, Red Bull still has a lot of work to do for the upcoming races. « It was a very unique tarmac and throughout the weekend, we were not able to manage the best level of grip possible. We did not have the pace throughout the weekend », he says. Despite the pole position signed by his teammate…

We were already in trouble on Friday and we never managed to master tire management, he continued. I think we just need to understand and make sure we are able to improve. We have already seen it last year on a track like this one, for example in Vegas, Ferrari was much stronger than us, so we simply couldn’t take care of the tires beforehand.

Helmut Marko does not agree with Sergio Perez.

If the Mexican is rather tough on his team, Red Bull’s chief advisor, Helmut Marko, tends to challenge Sergio Perez’s words. He is convinced that the outcome of the race would have been completely different if Max Verstappen had not had to retire.

« I talked to Max and he said that despite the problems, he was able to keep up relatively easily with Sainz’s pace. With Max in the race, the result would have been completely different », he told Sky Germany.

Anyway, the race is over and the result is clear: Sainz (once again) put an end to the long series of consecutive victories of the Dutchman, who now finds himself only four points ahead of Charles Leclerc in the championship. Like Red Bull, which also saw Ferrari close the gap to just four points after the one-two in Australia.

Will Carlos Sainz be at Red Bull in 2025?

Furthermore, following Sainz’s victory, Christian Horner stated that he did not rule out the return of the Spaniard within the Red Bull group next year, and therefore instead of Sergio Perez. The Ferrari driver still finds himself without a seat for 2025, following Lewis Hamilton’s arrival.

« I think we want to field the best possible duo at Red Bull Racing and sometimes we also need to look outside the (Red Bull) pool,” said the team principal of the Austrian team to Sky Sports. “You had a very fast victory from an unemployed driver today, so the market is reasonably fluid with some drivers. Based on a performance like that, you can’t rule out any possibility. So I think we just want to take our time,” concluded Christian Horner.

On his part, F1 journalist and former team manager Peter Windsor believes based on several sources in the paddock that Sergio Perez’s contract with Red Bull has already been extended beyond the end of 2024. But with paddock rumors, the world is being reimagined…