Because of Sergio Perez’s shocking points gap with teammate Max Verstappen, his future at Red Bull remains at stake. The Mexican came into the Austrian outfit to help it stay at the top of the Championship Standings. However, Checo has failed to live up to the standards of the dream team that Red Bull wanted. Now, Eddie Jordan believes he cannot pull off the impressive stunt that Nico Rosberg had performed by defeating his teammate Lewis Hamilton in 2016 to clinch the F1 title.

Last year, when Red Bull’s two recruits, Max and Sergio, competed in the first four races of the season, Checo won equal times as his teammate. But now, despite being at the wheels of the same RB-20 race car as the Dutch lion, Sergio Perez has built a massive gap to him. At present, the Mexican is 6th on the World Championship table with zero Grand Prix wins whereas Verstappen is at the top of the standings with 7 race victories. Because of the difference between Checo and his teammate, he might even lose his Red Bull seat in case he does not impress the Red Bull stakeholders at the upcoming races.

At the start of this season, Perez renewed his deal with RBR. Now, his situation is just like Nico Rosberg’s was in 2016. The ex-Mercedes racer had re-signed a contract to appear as the then-World Champion Lewis Hamilton‘s teammate in 2015. Powered by his new deal, Rosberg tried hard to surpass his teammate in the standings that year, but he couldn’t. However, in 2016, the German managed to turn the tables on Hamilton to win the World Championship. In a recent interview, Eddie Jordan brought up Rosberg’s example to state what he expects from Perez.

Jordan discussed Checo on ‘Formula For Success’, saying, “Since it has been announced that [Sergio Perez] has renewed the contract, I see a distinct lack of performance. And I have to call to question: why is that? Because it should be quite the reverse: you get a new contract, you should say, wow, let me make the [most] out of this, let me win races…just like Nico Rosberg did with Lewis Hamilton. For heaven’s sake, he’s got the same car as Max Verstappen. You know, last week, he was a second a lap of the Qualifying of his teammate. That’s unacceptable.” Well, what was the ‘unacceptable’ Quali difference that Jordan mentioned in his monologue on Perez’s poor results?

Sergio Perez’s glaring gap to teammate Max Verstappen at the British GP

At the recently-held British GP, Red Bull had an underwhelming outing as none of its two recruits could impress the onlookers. While Max Verstappen failed to secure pole position, he ended his run on Sunday at the historic Silverstone GP by bringing home a P2 finish. But in Sergio Perez’s case, the problems seemed gigantic. The 34-year-old was not just awfully off-pace in comparison with his teammate, he had some struggles with his RB20 as well.

During the Quali, Perez got knocked out in Q1 and secured the 19th position on the starting grid for the British GP. Then, Red Bull fitted a new internal combustion engine to amp up the performance of his car, causing the Mexican to incur a penalty. When he started from the pitlane on Sunday in Great Britain, Checo could only improve his position by 2 places as he finished 17th.

Reacting to his run, RBR boss Christian Horner said, “He knows it’s unsustainable to not be scoring points. We have to be scoring points in that car, and he knows that.” While Checo has only scored 15 points in the last six races, Max Verstappen has scored 119. The stark difference between them might urge Red Bull to demote Perez despite his existing contract and replace him with Daniel Ricciardo. As per several F1 pundits, the last two races before the summer break – the Hungarian GP and the Belgian GP, might prove to be the deciding factors for Checo’s Red Bull fate.

Should Sergio Perez be allowed to stay on at RBR despite performing at his current level? What do you believe? Share in the comments below.