Hill can foresee ‘mid-season spurt’ of Perez form

Damon Hill believes Sergio Perez can produce a “mid-season spurt” of form and put himself firmly into World Championship contention.

The Mexican is flying high having followed up his second-place finish in Spain with a win in Monaco. With that victory, Perez has moved to within 15 points of championship leader Max Verstappen and is looking like one of three contenders for this season’s crown alongside his team-mate and Charles Leclerc.

The scene is remarkably different from the one after the Spanish Grand Prix in which Perez was issued with team orders to allow Verstappen to pass, much to his displeasure.

Now he is looking like a credible threat to Verstappen’s chances of retaining his crown and Red Bull team boss Christian Horner even said it “doesn’t matter to us which of the two is World Champion”.

Christian Horner: “It doesn’t matter to us which of the two is World Champion.

“But whether it’s Max or Checo, they are both Red Bull drivers and they both have the same chances…it’s great to have both drivers right at the sharp end.”#F1 pic.twitter.com/kq2aYHiVKm

— PlanetF1 (@Planet_F1) June 4, 2022

It seems unlikely Red Bull would want to upset their main star in Verstappen, but Hill believes a mid-season run of form could put Perez in serious contention for the championship.

“I think he’s bunched up the whole championship, actually,” Hill told Sky Sports News. “If you look at it now, there was Sergio saying in Spain he was upset he had been given team orders and he wants to fight for the title. But he’s only 15 points behind Max Verstappen now, so it’s tight and there are lots of drivers in the mix.

“In some ways, it’s just made it more of a close title fight for the rest of the season. We’ve had changes in form, so it was unusual to see Sergio ahead of Max on the grid [in Monaco].

“Sergio likes Baku, which is the next race. You might find Sergio putting on a bit of a mid-season spurt and attack on the championship.”

While it is a welcome relief for Red Bull to finally see both of their drivers competing for wins – something that has not happened since Daniel Ricciardo left to join Renault for 2019 – it comes with the added negative of a possibly increasingly toxic relationship between the two drivers.

The most notable recent example of this came at Mercedes in 2016 when Nico Rosberg battled with Lewis Hamilton, but Verstappen and Perez have both said they do not believe tensions will boil over.

“I don’t think so, in terms of whether the relationship will change,” Verstappen has said when asked if the title race may change their relationship. “We have a good…”

Perez jumped in: “We are still going to be in love, right?”

Verstappen affirmed that.

“Yeah, absolutely,” he said. “Why would that change?

“We work really well as a team. We always try to optimise the car and work for the team and we can accept when someone does a good job or does a better job, and I think that’s very important because that’s how you are respectful to each other.

“May the best man win at the end, right?”

Perez to make it two in a row in Baku?

Sergio Perez is in top form right now and may look to make it two race wins in a row, not just on the trot this season but in the Baku streets.