Perez is 21-0 down to Verstappen

Today marks exactly one full year since Sergio Perez last celebrated victory in a Formula 1 grand prix.

Over the first four rounds of 2023, the Red Bull driver took two victories. The first in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in Jeddah, before holding off team mate Max Verstappento win in Azerbaijan.

But since that last victory around the notorious street circuit – that led to his race engineer Hugh Bird dubbing him the ‘King of Baku’ – Perez has been on the wrong end of one of the most lop-sided intra-team battles that any front running outfit has ever seen.

In the full calendar year since the last time car number 11 stopped in front of the number one board in parc ferme, its sister car has done so 21 times – the most wins over any 365-day span in the sport’s history.

But it goes much further than victories. Verstappen has only failed to finish once over that time, after his overheating brakes forced him out of the running early on in last month’s Australian Grand Prix. In the other 22 races, Verstappen only failed to win on one other occasion in Singapore, where Red Bull suffered an extremely rare off-weekend which ruined what would have otherwise been a perfect season for the world champions.

Despite his team mate’s success, Perez has not enjoyed anywhere close to the same run of form as Verstappen over the last year.

Verstappen vs Perez over the last year:

Immediately after that Baku round, Perez secured pole for in Miami while Verstappen failed to set a Q3 time – he made a mistake on his first run, then a red flag denied him a second attempt. But despite starting from eight places lower on the grid than his team mate in a race without Safety Cars, Verstappen made his way up the order, caught and passed Perez and won the race.

That Miami race was arguably the closest Perez has come to victory over the last 12 months. In that time he has taken half as many podium finishes of his team mate, qualified an average of just under six positions lower on the grid than Verstappen and has led 1,043 fewer laps.

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But there have been distinct phases to Perez’s disappointing year. Following his Miami defeat, Monaco marked the start of an infamous run of five consecutive rounds where Perez failed to reach Q3. Although he managed to take three podiums before the summer break,…