Verstappen alone: This is how many points Max lost already because of Perez

Title fight in F1

Formula 1 fans finally got what they had been hoping for years in 2021, and that is a battle for the title. Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen are a close match, and that's what makes this title fight so interesting. Every detail suddenly becomes important. Every pit stop and every strategy has to be right, but of course, so does the teammate.

You can think what you like about Valtteri Bottas, but he is doing a perfect job at the moment. In the rain at Imola, he had an off-day, but at all the other races he was close to the top, offering Mercedes an extra strategic choice. 

Indeed, Perez's absence and Bottas' availability means that Mercedes can take a risk. In Bahrain and Spain, they opted for an attacking strategy, with Bottas as a buffer. Hamilton would not have come in sooner in Bahrain if Perez had still been there, and the same can be said of his second pit stop in Spain.

Verstappen loses out on victory

In Bahrain, Verstappen was clearly the fastest driver. He took pole with almost four-tenths difference, had a good start and kept Hamilton behind him during the race. Hamilton went for the undercut though and could do so without risk, as Bottas was the only driver he had to give up a place to. The undercut gave Hamilton the lead in the race, and Verstappen had to use a different strategy to attack. That would ultimately fail.

In Imola, Perez should also have ensured that Hamilton had taken fewer points. At the restart, it was Verstappen on P1, Perez on P4 and Hamilton on P8. Now Hamilton could drive to P2 because Perez had made a mistake. Had he found his way through traffic like Hamilton did, he would have been P2 and could have snatched three points from Lewis.

In Spain, things went wrong again, as a poor qualifying session put Perez in the midfield. In Spain, overtaking is difficult, so Verstappen was on his own again against Hamilton and Bottas. This time Hamilton was able to opt for an undercut in free air at his second stop, which turned out to be the quickest strategy. Verstappen could have countered this, but then gave the lead to Bottas.

Perez can't help Max

All in all, this cost Verstappen a lot of points. Besides the point for the fastest lap, Verstappen would have scored seven points more in Bahrain if Perez had been present. Hamilton would have had seven points less. In Imola Perez had to take three points from Hamilton.

The result in Spain is debatable. Mercedes clearly had the better car and it remains to be seen if Verstappen could have kept Hamilton behind until the end of the race. We'll never know now though because the absence of Perez meant Mercedes could choose a faster strategy. So you could say that Verstappen lost seven points here, and Hamilton got those seven for free.

In the current standings, Hamilton has 94 points, and Verstappen 80. If you look at the ranking with the data above, Verstappen is number one with 94 points, and Hamilton only has 77. Suppose you give Hamilton the benefit of the doubt and give him the victory in Spain, then Verstappen is still ahead 87-84.

In a title fight between two different teams, all details come into play, and that includes the teammate. Bottas' seat is up for discussion for 2022, but for now, he is the man who can support Hamilton excellently. We can't say the same about Perez (yet). He has put Verstappen in a position where Hamilton could attack him three times already, and you could argue that Verstappen does not have the lead in the standings because of Perez's absence. He already lost 14 points because of Perez, and Hamilton could have lost 17 points with the presence of Perez. So a total of 31 points for which Perez is responsible.

Perez's fault?

It's far too early to draw conclusions. We know Perez is an extremely talented driver. He's reached the podium many times in the various disguises the Racing Point car was under. We're only four races in and it's going to take a relatively long time to adjust to the RB16B. Another example elsewhere is Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian is only just getting used to his McLaren.

Speaking of Ricciardo...Gasly and Albon have both come and gone since his Red Bull departure. And so far Perez is experiencing the same fate. We'll have to wait until at least the summer break before making our minds up, but this seems like more evidence that Red Bull's car is either too difficult to drive, or entirely focused on Max Verstappen's style of driving. Whatever the reason, it's costing Red Bull and Verstappen.