Who is Hugh Bird, the engineer who would have harmed Checo Pérez at Red Bull

Checo Pérez's second half of the season did not start in the best way at Red Bull, because in the three races that have been held after the summer break, the results of the Mexican driver are far from what was expected at the beginning of the year, especially because of the contrast with his teammate, Max Verstappen.

Although the circumstances are different in each of the races, in the last two races there is special criticism of the team's strategy and its radio communication, especially after the last debacle at the Italian Grand Prix, where a mistake cost Sergio a podium as third place.

Because the main eyes of the fans fall on Checo himself; on the team's director, Christian Horner, and the trusted advisor, Helmut Marko, not many know who serves as Perez's right-hand man every weekend.

This is Hugh Bird, the racing engineer of Sergio Pérez and who is in his first season at the helm of a Red Bull car, since although he has accumulated several years within the organization, he has never before served in this position of vital importance for the proper functioning of a team of Formula 1.

For the first time in his career, Checo has a racing engineer younger than him; however, this is not synonymous with inexperience for Bird, as he boasts a resume that seems to be up to occupy this type of responsibility within Red Bull.

Hugh is an engineer by Red Bull Racing and Red Bull Technology in simulator performance and analysis, key dependencies on any Formula 1 team. In fact, his past as a simulator performance engineer since 2015 allowed him to be promoted to career engineer in 2021.

He also has a master's degree in Mechanical and Fluid Engineering from the University of Cambridge, so his work within Red Bull is not only to give directions to Checo by radio, but his experience and wisdom are fundamental to the physical construction of Pérez's RB16B.

While Paul Monaghan serves as the team's chief engineer, two of his major subdivisions lie in the performance engineer, where Bird already had five years of experience, and in the career engineer.

The former focuses his time on the electronic configuration of the car and, according to Simon Rennie, leader of the simulation engineering group at Red Bull, “takes care of things like differential configuration, the way brake balance is formed, electronic control systems and how they are mapped.”

With these responsibilities relegated, the race engineer's goal is to “configure wing levels, ride height, anti-roll bars; in addition to taking care of tires, car legality and parts of the construction process”, according to the Red Bull Racing portal.

For this reason, although critics at the Italian GP pointed out Hugh Bird for not responding to Pérez to return the position to Charles Leclerc, his work with the car is much more complex than just giving directions in the race to Checo.

Both make up a team that only works with good feedback between both parties, so the experience will be crucial to improve the car and eventually communication, since mistakes such as running out of time in the rankings are only the product of imperiousness.

On the other hand, Gianpiero Lambiase has been Max Verstappen's career engineer since he became a Red Bull driver, so communication and understanding is much more oiled with the Dutchman, as well as pervading his extensive experience within the category.

Interestingly, Lambiase also worked with Checo Pérez in 2014 within Force India, but the following season he joined Red Bull.

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