Verstappen's wingman has been found: Perez deserves a new contract

The search after Ricciardo

Since the departure of Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull Racing has been struggling to fill in alongside Verstappen. With Ricciardo and Verstappen, Red Bull might have had the strongest duo on the grid, but the Austrian racing team had not quite taken the Australian's departure into account, as it turned out when finding his successor.

Pierre Gasly was moved on to the first team earlier than planned. That turned out not to be a good move for anyone. Red Bull didn't show its best side by demoting its own pupil after only six months and Gasly has made himself so unloved within the team that even a victory with AlphaTauri won't give him a chance at Red Bull anymore.

Alexander Albon, unlike Gasly, did listen to tips and meekly adopted Verstappen's setup, but the Thai simply lacked speed. He was given a year and a half, but even that was not enough to be a real support for Verstappen.

Red Bull needs a second driver

In the title race of 2021, Max really needed that second driver and Perez was not always helpful either. The Mexican was especially too slow on Saturday and could keep up on Sunday. Just as Valtteri Bottas was able to win a race on occasion, Perez never managed to finish ahead of Lewis Hamilton, however.

In Abu Dhabi, however, Perez showed a first glimpse of what he can really do, holding up Hamilton tremendously, bringing Verstappen back on the Briton's tail. This was already hugely appreciated within the team, but the performance in 2022 will be even more cause for celebration.

In 2022 Perez has yet to make a mistake and is exactly at a distance from Verstappen that you would expect from a second driver. In Bahrain and Australia he qualified right behind the Dutchman and was therefore in the race of help. In Bahrain he dropped out due to bad luck, but in Australia he grabbed second place after Verstappen dropped out.

Perez has made the step

In Saudi Arabia, he had even accomplished the impossible by taking pole, while Verstappen did not get beyond P4. The Dutchman eventually won the race after Perez had bad luck with the safety car just after his pit stop. Again, he showed his value to the team.

However, as icing on the cake came Imola. In qualifying Perez had some bad luck with the red flag, but in the sprint race he already came back to P3. In the race he passed Leclerc at the start and kept him behind for the entire race. That the Monegasque could not pass Verstappen because of this was already a nice plus, but because Leclerc was stuck he also made a mistake out of eagerness and ended up in the wall.

All in all, Perez proved that he has made the step that Red Bull and himself hoped he would make in 2022. If Carlos Sainz deserves a new contract at Ferrari, Perez totally deserves it. Red Bull Racing is simply not going to find a better second driver and needs to commit Perez quickly before another team realizes this as well.