Sergio Michel Pérez Mendoza, better known in Mexico as Checo Pérez. This Mexican racing driver from Guadalajara began his career in 2004. After dominating the British Formula 3 and being crowned champion in it, he ascended to the GP2 Series, currently known as Formula 2. After being runner-up in the F2 category in 2010, he manages to fulfill the dreams of every professional driver, to reach the highest category of all, the great motorsports circus, Formula 1 (F1).
Making his debut in 2011, he began his career in Formula 1 with the Sauber team. Despite having some bad moments, from the beginning he has shown the quality that he has as a pilot. Checo Pérez is one of the most consistent drivers in the grid, the proof of this consistency and quality is that despite not having a competitive car during 10 of his 11 years of career, he always managed to position himself inside the top 10, crowning himself as the best of the rest. In addition to having one of the best if not the best tire management during any race.
Checo Pérez has passed through several teams throughout his long 11-year career as an F1 driver, even crossing during his third year through the McLaren F1 Team. despite having a difficult 2020 season, in which midseason he was left without a seat for 2021, Checo once again showed his quality as a driver, winning 4th place in the drivers’ world championship, just behind the 4 drivers of the 2 best teams of the season.
Thanks to his talent, Sergio Pérez managed to sign with one of the best 2 teams in the great circus, Red Bull Racing Honda, at the end of the season, since the said team was forced to look outside its driving school thanks to a slump with the Redbull last 2 second drivers (Pierre Gasly and Alexander Albon).
With only 2 more races to go to the end of the current 2021 F1 season, the question many people ask ourselves is, has Checo Pérez done better than his 2 predecessor drivers in the team? my answer is yes, and it is not just a question of patriotism to support the only Mexican and Latin American driver in F1, he has shown to have superior performance than the previous 2 Red Bull Racing drivers.
If we take into account the results delivered by each of the drivers, we can see the superiority of Checo Pérez compared to both pilots, Alexander Albon being the one closest to the results of Sergio Pérez, and even so, the difference is quite big between the two of them. “After 17 races contested in 2021, Checo equaled the number of great prizes that Alexander Albon played in 2020 and did so with a notable superiority in terms of results since, at the same time, Sergio Pérez doubled the podiums obtained and got 45 points more than the Thai.» Currently, I consider Checo Pérez has shown that he is just what Red Bull needed for their team, proof of this is the close battle for the world championship between Mercedes and Red Bull, something that they hadn’t been able to achieve again since Ricciardo.
So answering the question: Is Checo the best Red Bull secondary driver since Ricciardo? Based on pure statistics, I think the answer to be clearly yes.
References: https://www.infobae.com/america/deportes/2021/10/25/checo-perez-vs-alex-albon-la-aplastante-superioridad-del-mexicano-que-le-da-la-razon-a-red-bull/.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergio_P%C3%A9rez
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