The Las Vegas Grand Prix was another tale of two drivers for Red Bull Racing.
Max Verstappen secured his fourth consecutive championship by finishing ahead of Lando Norris and giving his Red Bull colleagues an excuse to enjoy Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Although it wasn’t one of the Dutchman’s standout performances this year, all he needed was to finish P5 to claim arguably his most impressive title.
Unfortunately, teammate Sergio Perez had another difficult weekend as he snuck into the top 10.
For the fifth time this season, Perez failed to progress beyond Q1.
His record in that respect is worse than Yuki Tsunoda’s, Nico Hulkenberg’s and Lance Stroll’s, who have all only been eliminated at that stage of qualifying four times.
Lewis Hamilton was another driver who qualified out of position, but his drive through the pack to finish 2nd suggests he’s still got plenty left in the tank ahead of his move to Ferrari.
Perez barely snuck into the points, however, commentating on the race for Sky Sports F1, David Croft and Martin Brundle were left marvelling at one move he managed to pull off.
Sergio Perez’s Las Vegas Grand Prix double overtake wows David Croft and Martin Brundle
As Perez was trying to make his way through the midfield, he came across a battle between Liam Lawson and Kevin Magnussen.
Perez and Lawson have had run-ins before, but on this occasion, he used the slipstream from both drivers going into turn 11 to pass both drivers.
Reacting to the move, Croft said: “There goes Sergio Perez, down the inside, three into one corner doesn’t normally go, it does this time!
“Thank you, Sergio Perez, that was absolutely magnificent! That’s what we want to see from you, he’s up into 12th place ahead of Lawson and ahead of Magnussen and Alonso ahead of Ocon a little bit earlier.
“That was vintage Sergio Perez there!”
Brundle replied: “Tremendous driving yeah, they were busy squabbling and he just eased off the brakes and went up the inside and kept it together.
“Lovely driving from Sergio Perez.”
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Croft continued: “But, Lawson and Magnussen, that’s the second time in this race that they’ve got very close to each other going into turn 15, not coming into contact but this time they had Sergio Perez on the scene as well.
“This time last year, Perez was the car in front, Charles Leclerc was the car behind and Leclerc did this.”
Brundle concluded: “It got to a point where Sergio had to do the double overtake, there was no backing out of that! Beautifully done, well done.”
Sergio Perez faces uncertain Red Bull future heading into Formula 1’s winter break
Perez contractually will be on the grid in Melbourne next year and could even see an extension in his current deal triggered that would run until the end of 2026.
However, there’s a growing feeling that Red Bull would be much better off with an alternative alongside Verstappen next year.
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Jenson Button has backed Yuki Tsunoda to replace Perez and the Japanese driver outperformed Perez across the race weekend in an inferior car.
Liam Lawson is Red Bull’s most likely Perez replacement although he didn’t pull up any trees during his first race in Las Vegas.
Team principal Christian Horner will be desperate for Perez to put in two strong performances before the end of the season that gives him all the ammunition he needs to convince his Red Bull colleagues that sticking with the 34-year-old is the right call.
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