Sergio Pérez will keep his Red Bull Formula One seat for the remainder of the 2024 season after the team held talks on Monday to discuss his future.
Pérez signed a new two-year contract in early June, but his position at Red Bull faced heavy scrutiny in recent weeks. The Mexican driver has failed to finish higher than seventh in any race since the Miami Grand Prix at the start of May, scoring just 28 points in the last seven race weekends. Teammate Max Verstappen, who leads the drivers’ championship, has scored 141 points in the same period.
Pérez’s downturn in form has allowed McLaren to close the gap to Red Bull at the top of the constructors’ championship to just 42 points, prompting the team to consider its options with his seat due to the performance clauses in Pérez’s contract that could allow it to part ways.
Potential replacements included RB driver Daniel Ricciardo, who raced for Red Bull between 2014 and 2018, and reserve driver Liam Lawson, who made five grand prix starts last year in place of the injured Ricciardo.
But following talks among senior Red Bull management, in which they reviewed a number of topics including the lineup, it has been decided that Pérez will keep his seat after the summer break and through the remainder of the season.
Red Bull team members were informed of the decision at the factory on Monday following the talks. Pérez has maintained throughout his recent struggles that he had no concerns about his future with Red Bull, and that he would be in the car for the remainder of the season and through to 2025.
After sliding from second place on the grid to eighth at the checkered flag at Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix, Pérez said he would no longer answer questions about his future, believing Red Bull “cannot waste any energy with all this speculation” given the need to focus on improving its car.
Horner has repeatedly said Red Bull wanted to do all that it could to support Pérez in a bid to understand why he was struggling so much.
“We need to work with him and continue to support him, to understand what isn’t quite working at the moment,” Horner said Sunday. “The priority is to support Checo, and to understand what he needs. We all want him to turn it around, we want to see him deliver.”
Verstappen has also been supportive of Pérez, calling his Spa weekend “very positive” and that his slide down the order in the race related to how the car was performing on its tires. “I think our main concern is the car,” Verstappen said. “That’s what we should focus on mainly.”
(Lead photo of Sergio Pérez: Mark Thompson/Getty Images)
