Horner sympathises with Perez: 'Had the toughest teammate with Verstappen'

Sergio Perez had a difficult 2024 season. While Max Verstappen was crowned world champion with a tricky RB20, the Mexican finished eights in the individual standings. Having such a competitive teammate to challenge, like the Dutchman, is not the easiest to manage, Christian Horner did sympathise with Perez on that matter.

Christian Horner has been on record for Grands Prix now saying he is not happy with Sergio Perez's performance this season. However, he does understand the Mexican did not have the easiest tasks.

"The benchmark is always your teammate," Horner began to GPblog among others at the Yas Marina Circuit. "The car has won nine races with Max at the wheel. It's had ten poles. It's had a significant amount of podiums and fastest laps. It's been far from the easiest car. Max is the hardest teammate in the world to have. So it's a difficult job to sit next to Max to extract the maximum out of the car."

The RB20 proved to be a difficult car especially during the second half of the season. Still, Verstappen could maximise the points he could score week in week out, while the same could not be said about Perez. "For sure, RB20 has been one of the more challenging cars that we've produced. Its operational window of extracting the maximum performance has been very, very narrow and that's something that we'll be working to broaden next year," Horner said, reflecting on their 2024 car.

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