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Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has claimed that former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone was the beneficiary from his bet with Sergio Perez at the Japanese GP.
Perez had an excellent result at the Suzuka International Circuit as he had one of his best performances in the sport for a while, finishing P2 behind teammate Max Verstappen.
Despite finishing almost 13 seconds behind the three-time world champion, he qualified a mere 0.66s behind Verstappen and kept pace with him for a while in the race.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner mentioned that he had a bet with Sergio Perez about qualifying on the front row, but that the Mexican made the same bet with Ecclestone. He said:
“I had a bet with him [Perez] to put it on the front row because his best qualifying performance had been P4 here. But somehow, having won the bet, he told me that he owed Bernie Ecclestone exactly the same amount of money.
“So he's passed that on to Bernie, who was the beneficiary from Checo's front row. So dear old Bernie is still making money while not even being here.”
Red Bull team boss analyzes Sergio Perez's P2 finish at Suzuka
Christian Horner also stated that he was impressed with Sergio Perez's P2 finish at 2024 Japanese GP and believed the latter showed good race pace this past Sunday.
As quoted by the aforementioned source, Horner said:
“His race pace was strong, and obviously he had the disadvantage of having to come back through the traffic.
“And there were a couple of moments where I must admit I had my eyes shut as he went into 130R. [I thought], ‘Do you need to do it there? Can you not wait for the straight?’ He didn't look like he had three kids when he made that move.”
While commenting on Sergio Perez's future with the team post-2024, Horner pointed out that Perez "knows he's out of contract for next year," and that "it's his seat to lose." He added that Perez was very popular within the team and has begun the season in the "best possible way."
The Red Bull driver has finished P2 in three of the four races in 2024 behind Max Verstappen.
