The second leg of the 2024 Formula One season is just around the corner. The Dutch Grand Prix will be the first race in the second part. The summer break was relatively calm with some spicy updates every once in a while. For example: Porsche announced that they are dropping their F1 dreams for the foreseeable future. Liberty Media, the owners of F1, are being investigated for rejecting Andretti racing in F1!
However, these stories are about things that are happening off-track and have nothing to do with the drivers themselves. The week before the first race of the second part, Red Bull announced a change of staff in the pit wall! Keep reading to discover why the change was made.
Sergio Perez Will Have A New Racing Engineer
From this weekend onward, until the end of the 2024 season, Sergio Perez will have a new person talking into his ears. His usual racing engineer won’t be attending any of the Grand Prix races, or at least not as an employee. Just before the second half of the season, his racing Engineer announced that he was expecting a baby. He will take his paternity leave and will be off for the rest of the season.
However, the role of a Racing Engineer is extremely important in Formula 1! The racing engineer is responsible for communicating with the team and the racing driver. Any information from the team about his car, set-ups and race information has to be communicated by the Racing Engineer. The information that Sergio gives to the team also has to be communicated through the Racing Engineer. Having a change of staff might be bad for Sergio because he could misinterpret key information about the race.
Is Perez Still In Trouble?
In the weeks before the summer break, Sergio Perez’s performances were lacking and negatively impacting the team. In the Belgian Grand Prix, he lost to Max Verstappen who started with a 10-place grid penalty. This wouldn’t be as bad if he had a bad qualifying session, but he started on P3!
Earlier this year Red Bull signed a contract with Sergio Perez to keep him for the next two Formula One seasons. However, this contract probably has a clause which states that Red Bull can break the contract if he doesn’t meet the required performance during the rest of the season!
In an interview, Sergio Perez told the F1 reporters that he was well-rested and ready to head into the rest of the season. We will have to wait until Sunday to see if he actually will be able to perform at Red Bull’s standards.
