F1 | Perez and Vettel, two big names already under examination in Portimao

I'll start again from three, because the third GP is the ready opportunity for redemption for two riders who started the season well below expectations. The destinies of Sergio Perez and Sebastian Vettel are somehow intertwined, because one inherited the seat of the other, Vettel in Aston Martin, and because thanks to the choice of the English team Perez found the opportunity of a lifetime on his path , that is, that much desired top team.

Yet the first two races of the season brought these two drivers back down to earth, far from what were the dreams cherished on winter nights. With the engines running, reality has torn the veil of hopes, proclamations, advertising and fiction.

For now Sergio Perez has not only been far from Max Verstappen overall, but above all in Imola he has shown limitations precisely in what were notoriously his strong points, i.e. a certain consistency over distance, the ability to maximize potential and good or bad result. His flash in Red Bull in the first two events was the qualifying lap at Imola, otherwise more confusion than anything else.

This is why Portimao is already an important stage for the Mexican driver: Checo will have to demonstrate that he adapts better and better to Red Bull and repay the team's trust in the form of consistency in the race and absence of errors. Precisely the errors and inconsistent performances had cost Alex Albon his job, and in Red Bull it is known that they don't take long to change their minds.

The discussion on Sebastian Vettel is different and in some ways more complex, a driver who ended up in a negative spiral that continues without interruption from red to green. The color of the car has changed, the emblem has changed, but Sebastian continues to navigate in a disconsolate and sad way in the second half of the group, among a thousand problems, some of them grotesque.

Surreal that he, who needs a stable or at least neutral rear car, ended up in the team that is suffering the most from the loss of rear load! Furthermore, Vettel is plagued by reliability problems, which do not even remotely affect the other Aston, that of Lance Stroll.

Sebastian lives in a Kafkaesque situation, squeezed on the one hand by the desire to do well and redeem the last difficult years of his career, and on the other hand cornered by his own team, where in words everything is idyllic, but in reality everything is still missing the necessary feeling with the car. With the result that Sebastian still seems to be a passenger of an adverse destiny, incapable and powerless to give the necessary steering.

His Portimao is an unknown, but if this disappointing Aston Martin "allows" him the luxury of driving without the worry of technical problems popping up like mushrooms, then it will be up to the German to put together a decent performance, to at least stay ahead of Stroll. The goal is to peek at the end of a tunnel that never ends, breathing a little.

Antonino Rendina

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