How Perez has shown what many F1 drivers need from the 2022 season run-in

"This win is really special for me because I've had a bit of a rough patch in the last few races. And I mean, obviously, the media in Formula 1 makes it extremely... a lot bigger. Maybe because I'm just Mexican and if I'm not two races in a row on the podium, then I'm having a worst season ever and Red Bull should drop me, and all that sort of stuff that you get to see."

Let’s examine this claim from Singapore Grand Prix winner Sergio Perez. It was made in the post-race press conference he left early to complete his TV requirements – the media pecking order having been inverted due to Perez’s lengthy post-podium visit to the stewards’ office.

For a start, with two victories, Jeddah pole and six other podiums, Perez is having far from the worst 2022 campaign or Red Bull season.

He’s also now just two points behind Charles Leclerc in the battle to be runner-up behind champion-in-waiting Max Verstappen, which is looking more like a two-horse race after Mercedes pair George Russell and Lewis Hamilton produced shockingly poor and uncharacteristic races around the Marina Bay track last weekend.

Even if it didn’t already have Perez’s services locked down until the end of 2024, Red Bull should not be considering dropping him and anyone suggesting so is completely wrong. Both 2022 titles are basically in the bag, the trophies already waiting to be shipped to Milton Keynes.

In holding off a talent as great as Leclerc in the way he did in Singapore – faster on both the intermediates and slicks, albeit for the latter only once his mediums had come fully up to temperature during the Ferrari’s brilliant stint two charge – Perez proved his worth to F1.

But looking at 2022 overall, negatives do stand out. Since winning in Monaco and backing up Verstappen well in Baku, Perez has been on average 0.681s slower in dry qualifying than his team-mate. This includes the gap to Verstappen in his Hungary Q2 elimination but excludes Austria, where Perez was thrown out of Q3 for a Q2 track limits infringement. And he’d picked up just 81 points to Verstappen’s 185 between Azerbaijan and arriving in Singapore.

Perez had to deal with the ignominy of missing out on Q3 at Hungary

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

PLUS: The two key contributors in Leclerc's defeat to Perez in F1's 2022 Singapore GP

There have also been errors such as rather embarrassingly being jumped by Russell at the virtual safety car restart in France, plus his wet Canada qualifying crash and Austria track limits infringement.

Overall, he’s just been firmly in Verstappen’s shadow. There’s no shame in that, but the pre-Singapore qualifying deficit is along the lines of the performance gaps to the Dutchman that led to Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon being dropped in 2019 and 2020.

Again, Red Bull should not be considering making such a move again with Perez – right now. If the team continues to rack up wins and titles, maybe it won’t for a long time a la Valtteri Bottas at Mercedes. There are not even any superstar Red Bull juniors coming up to possibly supplant Perez, although that might’ve changed had Colton Herta had enough superlicence points to make a 2023 AlphaTauri bow…

“Checo has always been phenomenal at street circuits. He seems to like slippery [venues]. Hopefully this will now give him confidence for the remainder of the championship" Christian Horner

Perez is popular at Red Bull and doesn't rock the boat – which Verstappen appreciates just as much as how far his team-mate would go in defence against Lewis Hamilton last year. Plus, the Dutchman knows he has Perez covered.

But, if he's showing the same pace and points deficit (he has 69% of Verstappen’s current total whereas Carlos Sainz has 85% of Leclerc’s for Ferrari, 137 points behind Red Bull right now in the constructors’ championship) in another durable multi-team scrap then that will be a major problem. After all, Red Bull lost the 2021 constructors' because Perez was weaker as a number two than Bottas.

Last year, Perez tried alternative set-ups to cure the wilder rear Verstappen can live with but was forced to accept this would mean being slower and so moved back towards how his team-mate prefers things and knuckled down in the simulator to get better at coping.

After the understeer Verstappen hates was eliminated by Red Bull getting the RB18 under the weight limit and being able to add ballast to make turn-in pointy, Perez’s struggles began.

When Red Bull's RB18 got lighter, Perez's gap to Verstappen grew

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said after his Singapore triumph that his staff have been “working hard with him on set-ups and so on”. It will soon be seen if Perez has therefore turned a corner, or if his Marina Bay brilliance – including showing pole pace in qualifying were it not for a slip late in Q3 – relied on his street track affinity. He now has three wins and five other podiums at such venues.

“Checo has always been phenomenal at street circuits,” Horner concluded. “He seems to like slippery [venues]. Hopefully this will now give him confidence for the remainder of the championship.”

But looking across the grid, Perez isn’t alone in needing a strong end to 2022. He’s just put himself at the head of a pack of what we might consider ‘curious cases’ of fluctuating driver form this campaign.

Mick Schumacher can consider himself mightily unlucky from the weekend just gone. He was running just a few seconds adrift of Daniel Ricciardo in the first half, but pitted a lap before the Australian’s safety car stop and so missed out on a gain into the points. Then he picked up a puncture in George Russell’s second botched pass of the race, which dropped him from 10th to 13th.

The second-year driver is facing deep uncertainty about his future F1 career. Although he’s ended the run of costly crashes from early 2022, he hasn’t made it back to the points since his Silverstone and Austria highs. It is understood that Haas is weighing up choosing between Schumacher and fellow German Nico Hulkenberg to partner Kevin Magnussen for 2023.

Missing out would be harsh on Schumacher given he responded to team boss Gunther Steiner’s public dressing down for the shunts and lost points, plus Haas would be giving up the obvious PR value of his surname and heritage. But as Steiner seems unconvinced, Schumacher needs to remind him of his qualities fast, then make the big step expected of third-year F1 drivers next season if he is kept on.

Mick Schumacher has not been wholly convincing at Haas

Photo by: Erik Junius

Magnussen, brilliant in not backing down against Verstappen early in the Singapore race but unfortunate to now have been black-and-orange flagged three times for damaged endplates, and Valtteri Bottas are both on point-less streaks. Those are six and eight races respectively for Haas and Alfa Romeo.

But they at least capitalised on their teams’ strong starts to 2022, racking up points before the other midfield teams developed ahead. And they already had deals in place for 2023.

Perhaps the bigger question for Bottas is how he goes about impressing Audi’s bosses with the chance of a long-term works deal in prospect when the manufacturer eventually completes its Sauber buyout.

Alfa has now re-signed Zhou Guanyu for 2023, which was a straightforward choice. The rookie has had a quietly impressive debut season and has had to endure plenty of reliability and crash misfortune – neither factor of his making.

Schumacher is facing deep uncertainty about his future F1 career. Although he’s ended the run of costly crashes from early 2022, he hasn’t made it back to the points since his Silverstone and Austria highs

But Zhou has also integrated deeply with Sauber/Alfa and works well with the unflappable Bottas too. He insists there’s far more to come in 2023, where he’ll have to prove he hasn’t already reached his F1 performance ceiling.

Esteban Ocon continues to have an up-and-down year, but still hasn’t hit the highs team-mate Fernando Alonso has reached (mainly in qualifying, such as Melbourne, pre-crash, Canada and Singapore). With Alonso on the way out, Alpine will be looking to Ocon to step forward as a leader come the season’s end.

By then Ocon could well be preparing for spending 2023 alongside Pierre Gasly – his fellow Frenchman but not close friend after their junior career animosity.

Ocon must establish himself as a team leader at Alpine - with Gasly set to join him next year

Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images

Gasly wasn’t afraid to hold back in criticising AlphaTauri for its early slicks gamble last Sunday, a big part of his slide from a solid seventh to 10th. Paddock rumours that his switch to Alpine and Nyck de Vries being his replacement are gathering strength. Gasly said in Singapore he expects to “have a clear answer on my future” in the next “two-three weeks”.

He also revealed how the 2022 AlphaTauri package has had better tyre warm-up despite the lower tyre blanket temperature mandated for this year, as this requires drivers to simply push harder on out-laps and not go through so many different procedures to bring tyre performance up like in 2021.

But the AT03 has not had the competitive peaks of the compliant cars the former Minardi squad produced for the final two seasons of the previous era and it is currently three places below its 2021 constructors’ result.

This is not helped by Yuki Tsunoda’s return of just 48% of Gasly’s total, and he had another big and bad crash last weekend. The lack of surging Red Bull juniors might be keeping the pressure off Perez at the senior squad, but it’s also not a glowing inditement of Tsunoda’s progress at the same time.

He’ll continue with AlphaTauri in 2023 and will shade de Vries in F1 experience but not years if they do end up as partners.

Drive to Survive has brought the less-famous of the current F1 crop to new heights of stardom. And so, with Red Bull’s first title double since 2013 all but sealed, how they end their 2022 storylines will be worth following in the dead rubbers soon to come.

Can the last five races create a change in fortunes for some of the 2022 pack?

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images