Martin Brundle shares how Sergio Perez ‘weirdly’ helped Max Verstappen at Silverstone

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It was another mixed weekend for Red Bull Racing at Silverstone as once again only one of their drivers managed to score points.

Max Verstappen needed to put in an impressive performance to return to the podium after his controversial end to the previous race in Austria.

Unfortunately for Sergio Perez, his slump in form continues to pile further pressure on his immediate future at Red Bull.

A mistake in qualifying led to a tumultuous race where he and the team got his strategy completely wrong, gambling on an early change to the intermediate tyres when the track was nowhere near wet enough.

Martin Brundle was speaking on the Sky Sports F1 Podcast about the contrasting fortunes of the two Red Bull drivers.

It was arguably one of Verstappen’s best performances of the season with Mercedes and McLaren having quicker cars during the race.

However, the Dutchman nailed his strategy, and despite Verstappen admitting how fast Carlos Sainz was, he finished more than 45 seconds ahead of the Spaniard – although he did do an extra pit stop to claim the point for the fastest lap.

Brundle has now suggested that despite Perez’s awful run at Silverstone, he ‘weirdly’ gave Verstappen an advantage over his rivals at the front of the grid.

Not only was he giving his teammate valuable data when it came to the intermediate tyres, but was also out of the way when the timing of each driver’s pit stop was crucial as the conditions of the track changed rapidly.

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Martin Brundle on how Sergio Perez ‘weirdly’ helped Max Verstappen at Silverstone

Talking about Perez running towards the back of the field throughout the race, Brundle said: “It helped yesterday for Red Bull in that weirdly because [Sergio] Perez started from the pit lane then bad decision going onto the intermediates, he was nowhere.

“So, that gave them the freedom to really pick and choose their pit stop moments with Max [Verstappen] because they didn’t have to consider double stacking like McLaren and Mercedes-Benz did in terms of bringing both cars in at the same time.”

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Max Verstappen was praised over the team radio during the race for nailing the timing of his pit stops, coming in a lap earlier than his rivals at the front of the race to finally go onto the inters.

The experience of both the driver and his team made all the difference with Oscar Piastri told he has lessons to learn after coming in a lap too late and ruining his chances of a first Formula 1 victory as a result.

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Sergio Perez’s Red Bull future in doubt after Silverstone

While Perez may have given Verstappen some useful data and the freedom to pit whenever he wanted, that’s not the reason he’s in the team.

Last season, Verstappen scored enough points to win the Constructors’ Championship on his own, although that’s unlikely to be the case this year.

The only thing going in Red Bull’s favour in that respect is Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari keep taking points off each other.

However, Perez needs to improve quickly to avoid being the latest victim of a mid-season Red Bull driver swap.

Liam Lawson appears to be Red Bull’s preferred candidate to replace Perez should they make a switch during the summer break.

It would be a big step up for the young Kiwi although Red Bull aren’t keen on promoting Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo’s own future is also in doubt.

There are plenty of very difficult decisions that need to be made by Horner and Helmut Marko over the next few weeks.

They’ll hope all four of their drivers up their game in Hungary and Belgium to avoid having to have a tough conversation.