The next two weeks may be some of the highs of Sergio Perez’s F1 career, as all kinds of hypotheses revolve around his future.
There are only two weeks and two races left before the start of the mandatory summer break, a period that Red Bull has used many times in the past to make adjustments to its team’s driver line-up.
To be transparent, there has been no official kick-off for Red Bull’s Sergio Perez to make it clear that his seat is in jeopardy to the point that a replacement is imminent.
In fact, Perez’s strong start to the season earned him a lot of praise from Red Bull’s most sensible management, especially Christian Horner, as the Mexican driver finished the first quarter of the season well backing Max Verstappen with second place in the standings. Forces Championship.
But, while other cars are dying out as F1 returns to Europe, Perez has fallen into absolute disarray. After scoring over a hundred points in the first six races of the season, Pérez scored only 15 in the second quarter of the year.
Struggling to score points, podiums seem unthinkable at the moment and Red Bull appear to be in real danger in the constructors’ championship. Max Verstappen has won three of the six races, but there is no doubt that McLaren, Mercedes and, at times, Ferrari have closed the gap to compete with the RB20.
With a single driving force scoring points, as opposed to a two-force drive attack on each of the other teams, Perez’s contract scenario was called into question. Despite recently signing a two-year extension, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko hinted, somberly, at how the summer break will be used and what adjustments, if any, will be made.
“The fact is that the Constructors’ Championship is very vital for the team and all the workers,” he told F1-Insider. “Because the more we achieve this, the more bonuses the worker will receive.
“This Sergio Perez has to keep his promises and he’s under pressure. “
But with Perez under pressure, Marko said he and Horner, the veteran, can still get out of their losing streak.
“We hope Sergio gets to work. He has already managed to get out of some kind of crisis several times in the past,” he said.
“Any other driving force wouldn’t look smart in front of Max either. Max is in the best shape of his life and is doing even better.
Red Bull has used the summer break in events to make adjustments to its organization, periodically swapping drivers between the main team and the sister team (which was renamed VCARB for 2024).
The most recent mid-season replacement at Red Bull Racing took place in 2019, when Pierre Gasly demoted to the then Alpha Tauri team to reposition it with Alex Albon. Before that, in 2016, Red Bull made the ambitious decision to send Daniil Kvyat back to the then Toro Rosso team to promote Max Verstappen, a move that has paid off in the years since.
While Marko says it is during the summer holidays that potential replacement decisions will be made, the four-week period also provides the opportunity to take a break, as races are run at top speed with double and triple heads galore. , a change of driving force. During the summer holidays it allows drivers to mentally reset and prepare for the second part of the season if they decide to change the environment.
“All Formula 1 contracts have exit clauses,” Marko told GrandPrix247. com, “most of them were similar in terms of functionality or, let’s say, the most productive drivers. As I mentioned before, we will evaluate the summer holidays and then we will make a decision.
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The main points of any driver’s contract are kept under lock and key, but PlanetF1. com studies on the subject have made it clear that the functionality clauses to which Helmut Marko alluded are quite straightforward.
Perez’s contract with Red Bull would likely include caveats that he cannot be reinstated to the sister team, but those can be terminated through such clauses. In this case, the door for Red Bull to make a replacement can also be opened for being too far away in the Drivers’ Championship.
To that end, Perez is believed to be within Max Verstappen’s hundred numbers as the summer break approaches, that is. With Verstappen as an apparent point of reference for Red Bull, being Pérez less than a hundred numbers away is equivalent to retiring from 4. races while the Dutch driver retires, meaning Perez has plenty of room to achieve that goal.
However, Pérez’s form is such that he has lately had 137 problems with his teammate in the middle of the season and with two races left before this clause comes into effect. This means that Perez will have to beat Verstappen by 37 points in the next two. races to ensure that the clause does not become available to Red Bull.
Given that Perez is almost six wins behind Verstappen after 12 races, it is difficult to believe that the Mexican engine is changing the game to the point of being able to avoid the availability of this clause.
Although the activated clause would open the door for Red Bull to make an upgrade, there is no guarantee that an upgrade will be made. Given that Perez’s recent form has only allowed him to fix 15 problems in six weekends, Red Bull has little to lose by swapping him for whatever he may have; however, Perez has shown that he is perfectly capable of achieving intelligent effects when he is at his destination.
But, with the option of a replacement in mind, it turns out that Red Bull is now in evaluation mode to see who might be the best candidate for the job. Yuki Tsunoda, despite his impressive form for VCARB, doesn’t seem to be thinking about the seat, however, Daniel Ricciardo’s recent fitness improvement has put him in contention.
Ricciardo, who raced for Red Bull between 2014 and 2018, leaving the team after a two-and-a-half-year partnership with Verstappen, returned to Red Bull before last year’s summer break. The aim was to see if the Australian could rediscover his old form and, failing that, he has shown improvement in the last 12 months.
As someone who is well known and has already prospered in the automotive and Red Bull environment, Ricciardo’s departure from VCARB would also see the Faenza-based team return to its same old project of being an educational floor for the Bull juniors. Grid.
“It has now been proven through all decision-makers that Racing Bull [VCARB] will be a junior team in the future, which basically has educational goals,” Marko said recently.
“There are still 3 races left before the summer holidays. Then we go down in combination and make decisions that move in that direction.
This suggests that the most likely end result is for Ricciardo to join Red Bull and allow Red Bull to integrate Liam Lawson alongside Yuki Tsunoda for next season, a complete separation from Pérez.
Another, less likely end result is that Lawson impresses enough to be given a 10-race season with Red Bull for comparison before 2025, leaving Ricciardo at VCARB; However, that would be at odds with Marko’s recent comments.
It is also possible, let alone very likely, that Red Bull will opt for an external hire, for example by creating a marvel by signing future Carlos Sainz: the Spanish arrived in F1 with Red Bull and in the past has driven for the Toro Rosso team. That would probably mean the end of Perez, and in all likelihood Ricciardo, at Red Bull.
Horner is reluctant to be friends with Perez, acknowledging that some drivers want a technique around the shoulder while, for others, a harder technique would possibly work.
Clearly keen to see Perez deliver the kind of form he has shown at various events during his four years at Red Bull, it is notable that Horner also hinted that the summer break was perceived as a line in the sand.
“We can’t rely on just one car, that’s why we desperately want Checo [Perez] to start scoring smart points again,” Horner told Speed City Broadcasting after the British Grand Prix.
“We know what he’s capable of, that’s the frustrating element. But we’re sitting after this race and what we want to do for the last two races before the summer break.
Speaking to media adding PlanetF1. com after a disastrous British Grand Prix, Horner said: “He knows it’s not sustainable not to add problems, we have to add problems in this car and he knows it. “
“He has his role and his goal, so no one is more eager than Checo to get back in shape. “
Having escaped too much scrutiny at Thursday’s press conference at Silverstone when Lando Norris was subjected to most of the questioning, Perez spoke to the media after his disappointing race on Sunday and the importance of the next two weekends for him.
“I think it’s a good time to take a little break and get back in shape for Hungary and Belgium, two very vital weekends,” he said.
“I think there’s some softness at the end of the tunnel, we had our strongest Friday in a long time, but at the same time, it was a very disappointing race. “
“Other than that, it’s just a matter of making sure we’re in the right diversity with the balance, looking to do the preparation we want for Friday and then things will be much better. “
Regarding the noise surrounding his future, Pérez reiterated that of the next two weekends.
One guy who has experienced precisely what Perez is experiencing lately is Pierre Gasly, after being left out of the main team during the 2019 summer break.
Gasly, who had rebuilt at Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri before joining Alpine for 2023, said he suspected Perez simply couldn’t feel the RB20 underneath him.
“I think my scenario is very different from Checo,” he told the media, adding PlanetF1. com, at Silverstone. “But I think he’s under a lot of pressure right now.
“I don’t know what to say to be fair. He’s a smart driver, everyone knows that, but he doesn’t seem to get his way, neither himself nor coming from the team. I don’t know and I can’t comment on that one.
“Ultimately, his current moment is that he doesn’t feel the car.
“Every time you feel strong about a car, you have, for one reason or another, a slow weekend. Next weekend you come back, you feel smart, you take smart laps and you don’t even think about it.
“But he just doesn’t seem to get the functionality out of it, whether it’s him or the team, I don’t know.
“But obviously something is missing right now between the two of us. “
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