Christian Horner insists sticking with Sergio Pérez at Red Bull is about ‘performance’

As Formula 1 entered its summer shutdown, Red Bull found themselves in an unfamiliar position, at least as recent history goes. With just a 42-point lead over McLaren — a number that could mathematically be erased this weekend at the Dutch Grand Prix — speculation lingered that to improve their Constructors’ Championship chances, a change would be made to their driver lineup.

However, the team went in a different direction, with Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner announcing at the start of the shutdown that Sergio Pérez, whose poor run of form helped open the door to McLaren’s charge, would be back in the RB20 following the break.

Horner addressed the decision speaking with Sky Sports F1 at Zandvoort on Friday, calling it a matter of “performance.”

“It’s all about performance. For us, we’ve got the two drivers that we believe in our pool of drivers are the most capable of giving us the best results,” said Horner. “If there was a doubt in that then we would have changed it.

“We have the best two drivers in this car and if we felt there was something better we would have changed it by now.”

Horner indicated when speaking at the team’s Milton Keynes factory at the start of the shutdown that some favorable circuits were coming up for Pérez. The Red Bull boss continued that line of thought on Friday.

“We know what Checo is capable of,” he told Sky Sports F1. “We know that at the beginning of the year he was scoring well, four podiums in five races.

“I think he’s just had a lack of confidence and has ended up in a bit of a spiral. He’s had a bit of a reset, hopefully, over the summer break.

“We know that there’s tracks that he’s won at coming up. We’ve got Azerbaijan where he’s won both sprint race and grand prix on the same weekend. He’s won a fantastic race in Singapore against Charles Leclerc in mixed conditions. He’s been very quick at Monza.”

However, Horner did concede that Zandvoort might not be Pérez’s best circuit. The Red Bull driver finished fourth at the Dutch Grand Prix a season ago.

“Zandvoort hasn’t been his best circuit, so of the four races coming up before the next mini-break, I would say this is his most challenging one,” added the Red Bull boss.

Complicating matters might be the fact that after the first two practice sessions, Pérez’s teammate lamented that at the moment, Red Bull is simply “too slow” at Zandvoort.

“Of course, in FP1 I didn’t really get a lot of running in. I guess in FP2 you could see a little bit more where you are. [We’re] a bit too slow on the short run, a bit too slow on the long run, so a bit of work to do,” said Max Verstappen to the official F1 channel.

“At the moment, [there’s] no clear answer of how to improve that specifically, but we’ll look into things. Just a bit too slow, as simple as that.”

We’ll see if Pérez and company can get things sorted in time for qualifying on Saturday.