Red Bull should have picked up Nico Hulkenberg over Sergio Perez in 2021: "He's got a stable mental approach to racing" 

F1 pundit Peter Windsor has said that Red Bull should have chosen Nico Hulkenberg over Sergio Perez to partner with Max Verstappen.

Since joining the team at the start of the 2021 season, the Mexican has been a great team player and supporting cast for double world champion Verstappen. However, their relationship has seemingly deteriorated in the last year, with Perez calling out the Dutchman for not being a great teammate .

During his Live Stream on his YouTube channel, Windsor said:

"I couldn't agree more, and I dare I say that I'm absolutely shocked at Checo's reactions to what happened in Saudi Arabia where he won the Grand Prix. I'm shocked that after that race he started saying, 'I'm in the running for the world champion, and I need to get the same treatment as Max' if indeed he said that."

Windsor continued:

"I'm still even more shocked that he's thrashing out at the team now because of what happened in qualifying and in FP3 in Melbourne. I think Red Bull are surprised by that as they imagined he would be this guy who is very quick and very polished and not as quick as Max. I don't think Nico Hulkenberg would be doing anything like that if he was at Red Bull. He's got a stable mental approach to racing, and I think he's got enormous talent."

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"Nico Hulkenberg's a guy even Max Verstappen would have been happy to have as teammate" - F1 pundit

F pundit Ben Anderson has said that Max Verstappen would have been thrilled to have a teammate like Nico Hulkenberg. He said on The Race podcast

"A motivated Hulkenberg who suits the car and is comfortable is gonna perform fairly relentlessly. He's a guy that even Max Verstappen would have been happy to have as a teammate. I don't think so because Max thinks he will be comfortably faster than Hulkenberg, although he might be.

"It's because he's a driver that he respects and drives more in a similar way to Max. So it would have been quite useful for him to have that similar reference on the other end of the garage."

It will be interesting to see if Red Bull replace Perez for Hulkenberg to team up with Verstappen.