Quote:
Originally Posted by BTCC frog
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Racefans may have him 20th but Perez was 2nd in the championship on merit, ie, he had scored more points than anyone other driver than Verstappen whom they would have rated amongst the best ever!
Even if the RB19 was superior it was not as far ahead of the opposition on lap times as the Merecedes cars were in some of the years 2016-20.
So the RB19 is a good car but not the most dominant car in any given year.
If you argue that it was the most dominant car in terms of overall lap speed then you depreciate Max's performance as a driver.
The reality is, a great car, with an outstanding driver who performed brilliantly and consistently over the season.
Perez didn't perform as well as Max but he did score 285 points.
If he is clearly the number two driver in a car that should have been second in every event as some people argue, then he should be measured against that possible score.
22 2nds in GP's, 6 seconds in Sprints, a total of 438. He scored 285, or 65% of his possible maximum.
Compare that with Hamilton who could have finished third in every race and sprint, a total of 366. he scored 234, against third in every event, That is 63.9%, actually lower than Perez scored.
Look at Leclere and Alonso, who scored 206 points each. If we compare their scores with a third in every race, they are obviously lower than Hamilton, at 56.2% of the possible points.
If we measure them against a 4th in every event, a total of 294 maximum points. This basically insinuates that the Ferrari and Aston Martin were incapable of getting a driver to the podium, so it comes as no surprise that they would have scored 70% of the possible points, if their cars full potential was a best of fourth place in any event.
If you measured Perez against the same standard (294 possible points) he scored 96.9%, very nearly 97% of all the possible points if he had finished fourth in every event.
That is why opinions and people's emotive assumptions about driver performance are never very objective. Too many other influences make up an
opinion.
Albon made a very interesting point about Max's driving style when he was at Red Bull earlier in his career alongside Max.
He said Max likes a VERY pointy set up, one he found extremely difficult to adapt to.
So much so that every time you made a mistake or gave yourself a surprise it sapped your confidence, and as you lost confidence you went slower and slower because you couldn't have confidence to be able to push the car to its maximum potential.
We know that this is what happened with Perez. I alluded to it in an earlier post on the subject.
Driving is never as simple as it looks and at every level, from karts to F1, set up affects performance.
And if you struggle with the car set up (or the kart) you will never get the best out of it.
And the opinions about Perez?
Most of the ones ranking him outside the top ten are rubbish.
The opening three or four races of the season represent his real ability, like Azerbaijan in 2023, or Singapore in 2022.
How many of his critics could have done what he did on those days?
None of them.