Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen to run ‘different floors for now’

Michelle Foster
Sergio Perez's Red Bull on the kerb at the Austrian GP. Red Bull Ring July 2022.

Sergio Perez's Red Bull on the kerb at the Austrian Grand Prix. Red Bull Ring July 2022.

Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen will run different floors for the next few races, Red Bull trying to get a “better read” on what works best.

Adopting ground-effect aerodynamics to create downforce, this year’s cars rely heavily on their floors and the vortices underneath, so much so that it seems teams are tweaking their floors more often than their wings.

Red Bull, cruising to a championship double, plan to conduct trials with their designs, Perez and Verstappen running different floors for the next few grands prix.

Perez says the team hope it will give them a better understanding.


“We just have different floors for now,” said the driver ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix weekend.

“We will have this floor for the next few events. And we will try to get a better read.”

Last time out at Spa, Perez was destroyed by his team-mate, Max Verstappen, the reigning World Champion fastest in qualifying and in the race.

He put his RB18 on P1 by six tenths of a second before an engine penalty dropped him to 14th. However, such was his superior pace he raced to the win and did so 18 seconds up on Perez.

The Mexican driver was baffled as to the deficit to his team-mate.

“I have to make sure I understand why there was this difference, what I have to do differently and how I can get more out of the car,” he said. “That’s all I can do.

“I’ve been on the sim this week trying to understand everything and hopefully I am able to go up another gear on my side.”

But Perez concedes Verstappen was just “super, super-fast really, really strong” in Belgium.

“I wasn’t able to get the maximum out of the car and that’s why the difference was amplified again,” he added, quoted by Motorsport.com.

Sergio Perez unhappy, speaking with Red Bull mechanics. Bahrain March 2022

The driver also reiterated his belief that Red Bull’s upgrades have gone in a “little bit” of a different direction to what suits him.

“The car has developed and gone in a certain direction,” he said. “But right now, my main focus is to make sure I am able to get on top of the car.”

Perez is second in the Drivers’ Championship but trails Verstappen by 93 points.