'In terms of braking, Verstappen has a huge advantage over Perez'
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- GPblog.com
Sergio Perez was unable to continue the good feeling of winning in Saudi Arabia in Australia. The Mexican driver's RB19 had a car that would certainly have been good for a place on the first or second row of the grid, but an early slide in Q1 meant the veteran will start Sunday's Grand Prix in Melbourne last. Peter Windsor analyses Perez's moment.
Over the radio, Perez immediately expressed his dismay: "We have to solve that problem, man. It was the same damn problem again." It seems to have been a problem with the Red Bull, although it was not reliability-related. Helmut Marko said: "We had no reliability problems this weekend. It was the fine-tuning of the engine mapping. That in itself has nothing to do with reliability."
In his analysis on his own YouTube-channel, Windsor shines his light on the situation. According to the Formula 1 journalist, the RB19 is "gentle" on the tyres. That is, if you want to get the rubber in the right window, it is a bit more work for Max Verstappen and Perez compared to Mercedes or Alpine drivers.
'Perez brakes have a harder time'
Windsor: "Checo was in the situation where he had to get tyre temperature, and he’s a relatively late braker compared to Verstappen. I think personally that was his undoing. I’ve said many times that Checo is absolutely brilliant with his right foot in terms of the way he gets the power down, particularly out of slow corners. He possibly still has an edge over Max in that area, which we will see again in Monaco. But in terms of braking Max has got a massive edge over Sergio Perez, we don’t talk about that much but it’s clear."
The 70-year-old Briton argues that Verstappen is a bit more preferable to his brakes. "Max is so good at massaging the brakes when he needs to and getting the car to look pretty boring on the lap."