On Perez's return to Suzuka for the first time since one of his most disappointing events of the 2023 campaign, Horner was especially intrigued about how well the Mexican would do.
With Perez’s previous best qualifying performance in Japan a fourth place on the grid in 2022, Horner offered to pay out a hefty wager if his driver could get himself on the front row of the grid.
Perez duly did so, and in the end missed out on beating his team-mate Max Verstappen to pole position by just 0.066 seconds.
When Horner came to pay out, Perez confessed that he had covered himself with a separate arrangement with former F1 supremo Ecclestone – so the money had to go direct to him.
Speaking about what happened, Horner 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.”
While the front row bet situation amused Horner, he was full of praise for the attacking drive that Perez put in throughout the race, which included some brave overtaking moves in 130R.
Source: Autosport