Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez have equal shot at 2022 F1 title, insists Christian Horner

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says that there is ‘nothing’ separating Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez in the race for the 2022 F1 drivers’ championship, and believes both men have an equal short at securing the title come November.

Verstappen is the current world champion, having beaten Lewis Hamilton to the 2021 crown after one of the most intensely-fought battles in the history of motorsport, while Perez is keeping pace with his younger team-mate much more often this time around after playing a clear wing-man role last time out in his debut season with the team.

Red Bull have won five of the opening seven rounds of the 2022 campaign, lead bother the drivers and the constructors’ standings, and would be further ahead had both drivers not suffered mechanical failures coming them to retire and lose points earlier in the season.

Perez won the last race in Monaco just over a week ago, taking the third victory of his career, but Verstappen had won the previous three. He holds a fifteen point advantage over Perez in the standings, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc splitting the two, nine points behind Verstappen.

‘[Perez] is in this championship just as much Max is,’ Horner said. ‘The difference between the two of them, it’s nothing. Him and Max have been a lot closer this year.’

His improved form at the beginning of 2022 earned Perez a new contract, which announced just before the race in Monte Carlo and which will keep him with the team until at least the end of the 2024 season.

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