Max Verstappen‘s highly dominant performance in recent is tough to replicate for anyone else on the grid. Sergio Perez has been highly overshadowed due to his teammate’s incredible results. The Mexican driver has failed to outperform Verstappen since joining the team in 2021. Red Bull Motorsport Consultant Dr. Helmut Marko reckoned that the Mexican driver simply couldn’t beat his Dutch counterpart.

Helmut Marko asserted that Sergio Perez was much closer to Max Verstappen as compared to his disastrous campaign last year. Notably, Checo has been using the same setup for the RB20 as the reigning world champion, which works best according to the 80-year-old. Marko didn’t hesitate to acknowledge that the 34-year-old couldn’t beat Verstappen even after running the same setup. Hence, there was no point in Perez trying different setups for his car.

He [Sergio Perez] is much closer than last year. Now Checo is following Max’s set-up and that is the set-up that works best on the RB20. And this is what matters most. You can’t beat Max with a different set-up. You still can’t beat Max, so the point is this and there is no story.
Helmut Marko said, as reported by it.motorsport.com.

Helmut Marko pointed out that Sergio Perez’s mentality had changed from the previous season, as he just wanted to be as good as possible in the car. Additionally, Marko recalled that Checo’s runner-up finishes in the races in the beginning. Moreover, Perez was much closer to Max Verstappen during the majority of the qualifying sessions in the 2024 season.

Checo now thinks: 'I just have to be as good as possible in this car'. His mentality has changed. You can also see it in these first races: he achieved second places, in one race he had some problems, but also in qualifying he was very close to Max.

Helmut Marko noted.

Helmut Marko admits Sergio Perez started a race from the front row after a ‘long time’

Sergio Perez has struggled to deliver solid results in Qualifying over the years. Helmut Marko took a jibe at Perez’s qualifying performances recently as the Mexican put his car on the front row for the Japanese GP. Marko asserted that it had been a long time since Checo started a race from the front row. Hence, Perez’s performance at the Japanese GP was ‘better than expected’ for the team advisor at Red Bull.

It's been a long time since Perez was on that front row of the grid, I have to dig a lot into my memory for that. I think Perez was better than expected, especially after his bad weekend here last year.

Helmut Marko said, as reported by racingnews365.com.

The 80-year-old was full of praise for Milton Keynes’ efforts at Suzuka after a stellar 1-2 finish. Red Bull bounced back after a horrible weekend at the Australian GP. As a result, Marko asserted that the updates brought for the RB20 worked well right away. Additionally, the team succeeded in fine-tuning the car as per the drivers’ requirements.

The most important thing this weekend is that the updates worked well right away and that we succeeded well in fine-tuning the setup.

Helmut Marko declared.

Red Bull will continue to bring about such minor changes to its car to further increase its lead over the competition. Currently, as things are, Milton Keynes is on a trajectory to have another dominant season similar to last year. Hence, all eyes will be on the Red Bulls during the Chinese GP weekend, and how the Austrian team fends off against the rival team’s improving paces in the pinnacle of motorsport.