Perez: 'Don't say the previous Red Bull drivers aren't extremely talented'

After the departure of Daniel Ricciardo to Renault (now Alpine) a vacancy arose at Red Bull Racing. Who would take on Max Verstappen? Pierre Gasly and Alexander Albon tried, but both failed. Sergio Perez is the third driver to try. The 31-year-old Mexican talks about his first few months with the Milton Keynes-based formation.

"I’m not saying the previous [Red Bull drivers] aren’t extremely talented – you’ve seen with Pierre, and with Alex, they’re huge talents. And they’re very, very young still," Perez told GP Racing prior to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix he won. The veteran knows there are reasons why Gasly and Albon struggled, but he doesn't care about that. "The team understands it more, but from my side, I don’t focus on that – I’m just thinking that I will make it work, focus on myself."

Perez knows his place

According to Perez, it only makes sense to look at himself and his own areas of improvement. In doing so, he also listens carefully to his engineers. "That’s the best approach I can have. It makes no sense if you are off the pace with the car to be chasing, or to make the team chase a different [set-up] direction that simply isn’t going to work. First, get on the pace, and then you talk…”

Helmut Marko is always very outspoken in the media. Gasly and Albon have already experienced this and Perez is now meeting Red Bull's tough but fair 78-year-old advisor for the first time. Marko doesn't hide his opinion and is not averse to putting his drivers under pressure. The Austrian says it's to motivate.

Culture of Red Bull Racing

Perez likes that: "I love that part of Red Bull – it’s full of racers, and it’s all driven by results. And if you deliver, it’s great, and if not, you know, you’re not good enough. I like that – to have that straightforward relationship with basically the whole team, and that really transfers not from the big persons in team. It’s the way the whole team operates at all levels. And that’s something that I really enjoy about Red Bull culture," he explained.