Horner Reveals He Lost Bet To Perez During Weekend In Japan

Tuesday, 09 April 2024 at 21:15

Updated at Wednesday, 10 April 2024 at 10:57

Red Bull Racing's team principal, Christian Horner, revealed the bet he had with one of his drivers going into the 2024 Japanese Grand Prix weekend.

The 2024 Japanese Grand Prix was the first race in 2024, during which Sergio Perez qualified on the front row. Moreover, he almost beat Max Verstappen to the pole but lost a crucial amount of time in the final corner of the Suzuka Circuit.

In the end, Perez's time was 0.066 seconds slower than his teammate's. However, it was his best qualifying performance this year, and Red Bull was more than satisfied with it.

This is mainly due to the fact that the race in Japan was one of Perez's worst last year. The Mexican driver positively surprised everyone with his performance.

Nevertheless, the 34-year-old had confidence since the start of the weekend as his team principal, Christian Horner, revealed they had a bet over his qualifying position. As reported by Sky Sports, Horner said:

"I had a bet with him because his best qualifying performance had been P4 here, so I had a bet with him to put it on the front row."

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However, the money didn't go to Perez's pocket in the end, as he admitted to Horner that he owed the exact amount to former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

"Somehow, having won the bet, he told me he owed Bernie Ecclestone exactly the same amount of money, so has passed the bet onto Bernie, who was the beneficiary of Checo's front row. So dear old Bernie is still making money, whilst not even being here!"

In Red Bull, they apparently like to have fun and gamble, as it wasn't the first time we heard the team had some small bets between themselves.

In Bahrain, for example, Helmut Marko revealed that he won a bet with Verstappen's race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase over whether the triple World Champion would score pole position.