Marko sees Perez as contender for world title: 'Not broken by Max'

Perez came to Red Bull Racing in 2021 as Alexander Albon's replacement. By then, Red Bull had been searching for Verstappen's ideal teammate for a while. The young Dutchman first saw Daniel Ricciardo leave, and then Pierre Gasly and Albon were found to be the light ones. However, with Perez, the ideal teammate seems to have been found.

Opportunity for Perez

Perez, for instance, is currently in physically excellent shape and takes it very seriously, according to Marko. "Sergio survived two years next to Max without being broken like most drivers. That's a great achievement,'' Marko stated at Sport.de. Perez gets equal opportunities at Red Bull and will really go for it in 2023, but his teammate's lack of weaknesses makes for a difficult task, according to Marko.

In the first two seasons, Perez finished behind his teammate in the standings, and in both seasons he was also lower in qualifying. In 2022, for instance, Perez still lost the qualifying duel 18-4 and an average difference per qualifying of 0.309s. Only Daniel Ricciardo, Nicholas Latifi and Guanyu Zhou left a bigger gap compared to their teammate.

So Perez has quite a gap to close, but it is not that he is hopeless from the start. If he is going to win races, it is not that Red Bull is favouring Max: ''Overall, the goal is that we want to win first and second place in the World Championship. We don't stipulate that that's Max,'' Red Bull's top adviser concludes.