The question now should be:
can Perez fight for the title against Max until the end of the season?
I don't think the other team can gain 1 second per lap in races to compete with them.
That would be something imho. And it would show how good really Verstappen is and all the argument that it's just because of the car will come to a close. It's pretty much the same point I was making about Vettel before during his RBR days. If Vettel was a bad driver and just depended on the car then why can't Webber, who was a decent F1 driver himself, couldn't out race Vettel and make the competition between them close?
Anyway, it's starting to show that Perez might have other plans and wouldn't just play second fiddle. The genius of Horner is he already got Perez's replacement ready... Ricciardo.