Why Sergio Perez will have a new race engineer at the Dutch Grand Prix as Red Bull pressure mounts

Sergio Perez is set to be without his usual race engineer at the Dutch Grand Prix this weekend.

Perez has had an incredibly tough season so far, and pressure is starting to mount over whether he will be keeping his seat at Red Bull. 

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The reigning constructors champions insist that the Mexican will be seeing out the rest of the campaign in the seat, but there is still huge doubt over his position. 

He has not finished above seventh since May and is well over 100 points behind teammate Max Verstappen in the drivers’ standings. 

So each race is getting more and more important, with things potentially getting more difficult for Perez this weekend as he is having to change his race engineer…

Why does Perez have a new race engineer?

Perez will not be working with his usual race engineer, Hugh Bird, at the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.

In fact, he won’t have Bird alongside him for the next four races.

And that is because the Red Bull race engineer, who has worked with Perez since 2021, is going to be on paternity leave. 

Instead, Perez will be working with performance engineer Richard Wood who will be stepping up into a new role.

Richard Cooke will be taking up Wood’s position over the next few weeks. 

Speaking about his change in engineer, Perez said: “Hugh, my Race Engineer, is expecting a baby very soon so will be spending some time at home and I wish him and his family the best of luck with their new arrival!

“Woody, my Performance Engineer, will step up in the meantime.

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“I know what we can extract from the car in the coming weeks and we will do our best to maximise the second half of 2024.”

So Perez still has high hopes despite knowing that Bird will not be in his ear during the next few races.

He will have Wood instead for the Dutch, Italian, Azerbaijan and Singapore Grand Prix.

All focus will be on Zandvoort first though, and Fern Buckley will have updates of the race from the Netherlands live on talkSPORT.

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