'Can Perez even make it to the end of the season?'

Sergio Perez is in the corner of the pack for a while. After the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, he had loudly declared that he really sees himself as a candidate for the world championship, but in the following three GPs he was lumped by Max Verstappen. Or he drove himself into a heap. Marc Priestley argues that Perez really needs to improve if he is to have a future at Red Bull Racing.

After the weekend in Baku, Verstappen stood on 93 points, his Mexican teammate on 87 points. The only mistake Perez had made so far was in Australian qualifying, forcing him to start from the pit lane. In Monaco, the 33-year-old driver went wrong again on Saturday by crashing into the wall and a week later Perez was eliminated in Q2 in Barcelona.

Perez needs to prove himself (again)

All qualifying was not very convincing from Perez anyway, as Q1 also only narrowly got through with a 15th time. "In qualifying, he made some mistakes. He messed up and that really set him up for the race where he started further back than he would have wanted to," Priestley told the BBC's Chequered Flag podcast.

Perez missed the podium by a few seconds, finishing fourth in Spain. "Then it’s a struggle in the middle of the pack – he tried to do some different things on strategy and we know how quick the car is because we saw it in the hands of Verstappen," said the former McLaren mechanic, who saw Perez just not excelling. "With Perez, I don’t know if he’s lost confidence over recent weeks – there was talk of a championship fight just literally two races ago. Now people are even questioning his right to be in that car. Can he even make it to the end of the season?"

Verstappen's teammate still has a contract until the end of 2024 and so, as things stand, he is likely to be in the RB20 next season too. But: we have often seen from Red Bull that they push drivers aside without mercy if they think another driver can get more out of the package.