Red Bull’s hopes of another one-two finish behind Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari at the Formula 1 race in China were dashed?
“At least we still made it onto the podium,” says Sergio Perez. But Red Bull had other things in mind for the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, namely a fourth one-two victory in the fifth race of the Formula 1 season. But why didn’t that work out?
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner blames it on the mid-race yellow period: “The timing of the safety car couldn’t have been worse for us, especially not for Checo [Perez]. Because we had started the race with a relatively aggressive two-stop strategy.”
On lap 13, Perez – like team-mate Max Verstappen – turned off for the first tire change and switched from medium to hard. The yellow phase shortly afterwards forced him to pit again after just ten laps on the new set of tires, “because we had to harmonize our strategy with Ferrari and McLaren for the final stint,” as Horner explained.
This early second stop at an unfavorable time for Red Bull had set Perez back decisively, because Perez ended up behind Lando Norris in the McLaren and Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari.
“That was actually the end of the race,” says Perez himself. Because he had to make excessive use of his hard tires to make up for the lost positions. “That’s when tire performance drops dramatically,” he explains. And that’s why he was only able to catch Leclerc in the end, but not Norris. At the finish, he was 5.387 seconds down on the McLaren in second place
What Norris thought about Perez’s pace
Did Norris feel threatened at all? The McLaren driver seems relaxed when he says: “I controlled things under my own steam today by pulling away from Charles very quickly. And then Charles held off Checo a lot.”
This constellation played into his hands, Norris emphasizes: “Checo probably had to use up a lot of his tires to get past Charles. That gave me a bit more space and that was a good thing.”
After a few laps behind Leclerc, Perez had opened up a gap of a good six and a half seconds on Norris. And it stayed that way until the finish line 17 laps later.
The F1 Tempo lap analysis shows: With a clear run, Perez managed to put Norris under pressure in the long distance duel for five laps and reduce the gap slightly. However, the situation then stabilized and Norris did not relinquish the advantage
Why Perez was unable to get past Leclerc
“Once you’re doing the same times as the car in front of you, it’s over,” says Perez. “We simply pushed our tires too hard. They don’t forgive you for that. The performance then doesn’t come back. Wear is generally high in Shanghai and I paid the price for it. But it was the only way I could get past Charles.”
The big difficulty here was that Leclerc’s hard tires were almost exactly the same age as Perez’s hard tires. So there was no tire advantage. “That made overtaking difficult,” says Perez.
“And after that, his tires simply weren’t good enough to chase Lando,” adds team boss Horner. Nevertheless, he praises Perez for a “very strong” weekend and for the next “double podium” for Red Bull.
Perez, on the other hand, is not completely satisfied. The safety car situation is gnawing at him, but even the first stint was not perfect from his point of view: “I simply lacked a bit of pace on medium.” Compared to team-mate Verstappen at the front, it was a few tenths to half a second per lap, according to the data analysis at F1 Tempo.
Car “improved” from Saturday to Sunday?
Perez blames this on a “bad balance” in his Red Bull RB20 and explains that his team made some changes to the car after Shanghai Saturday. “But I don’t think we anticipated the conditions perfectly. We took a small step backwards. And that meant a limitation for me.”
However, you can’t foresee and plan everything, says Perez: “Once you’re in the field, it’s difficult to judge the balance. If you then have two or three cars directly in front of you, the downforce is significantly lower. And then you really don’t know what your balance is like. “
Perez loses the start against Alonso
However, Perez also has himself to thank in part for this situation. He admits to a “not so good start”, which allowed Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso to take P2 behind Verstappen right at the start of the race.
This was another reason why his medium tires didn’t stay in good shape, says Perez: “I had to push them quite hard to get past Fernando. That probably cost me a bit too much [tire performance]. It definitely set me back in the first stint.”
Further details will have to come from the Grand Prix review. “We’ll have to see what we could have done differently or better. But overall it was a strong weekend,” says Perez.
The championship table confirms this impression: with 21 points, Perez took the second most points from China, twelve fewer than championship leader Verstappen and the same number as McLaren driver Norris.
