Did Perez deserve his latest kicking from Marko after ‘sacrificial’ race strategy? · RaceFans

Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko slated Sergio Perez’s performance after he fell from second on the grid to finish eighth in yesterday’s Belgian Grand Prix.

“Sergio had the opportunity to achieve a good result in second place,” Marko told Sky Germany. “But unfortunately that wasn’t the case.

“In particular, in the final stint, he completely collapsed, at times driving [one minute] 48 lap times. So what looked so positive in qualifying unfortunately didn’t come true in the race.”

Marko’s comments on Perez’s lap times are not inaccurate. But does his withering assessment of Perez’s efforts also ignore an important aspect of his contribution to the team’s performance?

Perez’s opening stint on the medium tyre compound was reasonable if not earth-shattering. Lewis Hamilton made a slightly better start and used the inside line at La Source to good effect, prising second place from the Red Bull driver’s hands.

From there Perez held on to his third place, falling around two seconds back from Charles Leclerc, who Hamilton demoted to second place on lap three. The Red Bull is undoubtedly a quicker car than the Ferrari at the moment and Perez arguably should have put up more of a fight.

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But at this stage in the race, with the softer rubber degrading quickly, few drivers were pressuring those ahead. Perez also revealed he did not have a full set of Red Bull’s latest parts at Spa – potentially a legacy of his heavy crash in qualifying at the Hungaroring a week earlier.

Perez’s race began to go south when made his second pit stop on lap 11. Unlike most of his rivals Perez took a second set of mediums at this point, but his pace was no better than Verstappen’s on hards.

He was being pursued by Oscar Piastri at the time, and the McLaren driver immediately passed him after they changed tyres on the same lap. From there he slipped back steadily from Piastri, and on lap 20 Russell made his move on the Red Bull driver for fifth place.

By now Perez had dropped back three places from his original starting position, all through on-track overtakes on a day when others were finding it difficult to pass. He had the second-slowest straight-line speed of anyone, 4kph down on his team mate (with a fresh RBPT Honda motor), and complained about his vulnerability in the long acceleration zones during the race.