Max Verstappen’s dad swipes at Red Bull and Sergio Perez and claims ‘it’s over’ | F1 | Sport

Jos Verstappen believes that Red Bull’s dominant era is ‘over’ following three difficult races in succession, and that Sergio Perez’s poor performances are starting to cost the team. The Mexican racer has failed to score a podium in any of his last three outings and crashed on the opening lap at the Monaco Grand Prix.

After the first five races of the year, the reigning world champion had four wins under his belt and was romping to his fourth successive title, while Perez had impressed Christian Horner and Helmut Marko by notching up four podium finishes. However, since then, the team’s fortunes have taken a turn for the worse.

Both Ferrari and McLaren have taken major strides forward in terms of their development, allowing Lando Norris to win in Miami and Charles Leclerc to take victory at his home race in Monaco. In Sunday’s race, Red Bull were arguably behind Mercedes in the pecking order, with Verstappen finishing in P6 and Perez crashing out on lap one.

Verstappen Snr was frank when confronting Red Bull’s reality. “The era when Red Bull had the dominant car really seems to be over now,” he told De Telegraaf. “Maybe they should start focusing a bit more on racing and mutual communication again, rather than on other things.”

He also added: “Red Bull needs to find out where this problem is coming from because it is clear that teams like Ferrari and McLaren are getting closer. Max has still managed to mask that somewhat, but the big difference with Sergio Perez is becoming more and more obvious.”

Perez’s performances are a real point of concern for Red Bull. Last year, the combination of the RB19’s raw speed and Verstappen’s unwavering consistency meant that the team could afford to carry the 34-year-old, but he has already slipped to fifth in the standings in 2024 after three difficult races in succession.

Max’s father isn’t the only member of the paddock to notice Perez’s lack of performance relative to his team-mate. Norris, assessing McLaren’s advantage, said: “I think we’re probably the team along with Ferrari where we have two cars up there performing in every single session, in every single race and qualifying.

“If you look at a lot of the grid, they don’t really have that. You have one guy who has put in a mega lap and has a good race and then the other one not so much. One of our strengths is that we’ve always had two cars up there and we can fight well along with Ferrari at the minute. So if we keep doing that, then yeah, for sure we can stay in it.”