With Perez performing, Red Bull have grid’s best pairing

Whether they have the best car is very much unclear, but with Sergio Perez performing, Red Bull do have the best driver line-up.

Before the start of the 2021 campaign – Perez and Verstappen’s first as team-mates – we did a piece ranking each team’s drivers, and gave them the top spot.

After all, the Mexican had been one of the most impressive on the grid in the previous season, winning a race for Racing Point, scoring more points than anyone outside the top two teams and looking very much good enough to drive for one of them.

However, he didn’t really take his chance to prove that in his first year at Red Bull. There were signs of promise for sure, and he was undoubtedly an improvement on his predecessors, Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon, but he was still a long, long way off Verstappen more often than not.

Now though, he’s performing as well as ever, and giving his team the most formidable pairing in the sport as a result.

Checo’s first campaign alongside Verstappen wasn’t a terrible one by any means.

He won a race, put in some strong recovery drives and had an excellent final seven rounds in which he finished inside the top four every time that he made it to the chequered flag.

'Sergio Pérez, moved teams… in his 6th race for his new team, SERGIO PÉREZ WINS THE AZERBAIJAN GRAND PRIX!'

Even today, the emotions as he approaches the finish line is unreal Manifesting many more moments like these this season pic.twitter.com/DRvKcmpcOT

— Checotivation CHECOPODIUM | fan account (@checotivation) March 1, 2022

Perhaps more importantly, in that period he was a huge help to his team-mate, holding off Lewis Hamilton with some excellent defensive driving in both Turkey and the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

While he did exactly what Red