Photo by Vince Mignott/MB Media/Getty Images
Red Bull is sticking by their driver. Was that the right call?
On Monday, Red Bull made it official. Despite weeks of speculation Christian Horner announced to team employees at their Milton Keynes factory that Sergio Pérez — who signed a new deal earlier this season to remain with the team through potentially the 2026 season — would continue driving alongside Max Verstappen when the season resumes in August. With Pérez faltering in recent weeks, speculation grew that Red Bull, facing a legitimate title fight, would make a change.
However, that speculation grows quiet now. Yet questions about whether Pérez will keep his seat have now shifted to questions over whether Red Bull made the right decision.
Let’s dive into both sides of that issue.
The case for change
The case for Red Bull making a change begins with a one-word description used by Horner in recent weeks to describe Pérez’s current form.
Unsustainable.
As has been outlined here and elsewhere, Pérez has struggled since Miami. Over the last eight race weekends, Pérez has banked just 28 points, well off the pace of drivers at the front of the field:
That subpar run of form has seen Pérez tumble from second in the F1 Drivers’ Championship standings to seventh, and had George Russell’s win stood in the Belgian Grand Prix, Pérez would have fallen to eighth. As it stands Pérez is only 15 points clear of Russell, a gap that could be erased when the grid returns later next month.
While Red Bull can feel somewhat comfortable that Verstappen remains in the driver’s seat for the Drivers’ Championship, the situation with the Constructors’ Championship is much less certain. Pérez’s poor run of form is just one factor in the equation, but Red Bull left Miami with a 52-point advantage over second-place Ferrari, and a 115-point advantage over third-place McLaren.
At the moment Red Bull leads McLaren by just 42 points. It is mathematically possible — albeit unlikely — that McLaren can take the lead in the championship at Zandvoort next month. But with McLaren consistently scoring points with both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri they remain the biggest threat to Red Bull at the moment, and that consistency is key. McLaren remains the only team on the grid that has seen both drivers score points over every race weekend this season, thanks to Piastri salvaging points in the F1 Sprint Race in Miami and Norris doing the same in the F1 Sprint Race in Austria.
On the flipside, Red Bull has endured three race weekends, all in recent weeks, where only Verstappen finished in the points. They have also seen two races — Imola and Spain — where Pérez added just four points at each event.
It is that lack of consistency in recent weeks, which has seen McLaren pull to within legitimate striking distance of Red Bull, that put Pérez under pressure. A lack of consistency that Horner called “unsustainable.”
It is also worth noting that Horner made that comment following the British Grand Prix, and the tripleheader that brought the grid from Spain to Austria and finally Silverstone. Pérez scored just 11 points over those three races.
Over the two race weekends since then, he scored 13 points. An improvement, but enough to keep him in his seat?
Apparently.
However, if that “unsustainable” form continues and it costs Red Bull a Constructors’ title — and the millions of dollars that come with it — they might have only themselves to blame.
The case for Pérez
While the case for making a switch at Red Bull centers on Pérez’s form being “unsustainable,” there is perhaps an easier case to be made on the other side of the issue, a case that involves multiple pillars of support.
First, consider something that Horner reportedly told Red Bull employees at Milton Keynes on Monday. According to multiple reports, Horner told the team that the upcoming races are circuits where Pérez has had success before.
That is absolutely the truth. The next three races — Zandvoort, Monza, and Baku — are all circuits where Pérez has excelled. Pérez finished fifth in the Dutch Grand Prix in 2022 and fourth last season, and finished second at Monza a year ago. The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was his playground a year ago, as he not only won the F1 Sprint Race at Baku last season but he turned around and won the Grand Prix on Sunday. In fact, the 33 points Pérez banked that weekend pulled him to within six points of Verstappen atop the Drivers’ Championship, leading some to wonder if we might see a battle between teammates for the title.
Then last year’s summer swoon hit Pérez, which erased any such notions.
In addition, some races are coming later in the season where Pérez has been strong in the past, including Las Vegas, where he captured a podium finish in the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix a year ago. He has also been strong at the United States Grand Prix as well as the São Paulo Grand Prix.
Then of course there is his home race, the Mexico City Grand Prix. While Pérez crashed out of his home race last season on the opening lap he finished third there in 2022, and Red Bull might view it as critically important to have Pérez in their car that weekend.
So the first pillar of the pro-Pérez argument is the upcoming schedule.
The next pillar? A quick dive into the bigger results picture.
As highlighted by noted F1 journalist Joe Saward on Twitter/X, Pérez’s form to this point in 2024 is almost identical to his form last year. Consider this: A year ago Red Bull scored 860 points as a team, with Pérez banking 285 of those points, good for 33% of Red Bull’s 2023 tally.
As we reach the summer break Red Bull has scored 408 points, with 131 coming from Pérez.
Which comes out to 32%.
While there is no denying that Pérez has struggled in recent weeks, he is still almost on the identical pace from a year ago, with some favorable circuits coming up after the break. The fact that Red Bull is in a title fight might have more to do with the strength their rivals have shown in recent months than Pérez’s struggles this season.
Then there is this, an adage that comes from the NFL world that holds that if a team has three quarterbacks, it really has none. The idea is that if a coach has three quarterbacks to choose from, then one has not solidified themselves as the best choice and the clear starting QB.
That leads us to the three options under consideration: Liam Lawson, Daniel Ricciardo, and Yuki Tsunoda. All three drivers have strengths that they could bring to Red Bull.
But they also have questions. As rumors swirled regarding Pérez’s status at Red Bull all three were discussed as potential replacements, but a clear contender for that seat never truly emerged.
Furthermore, imagine what would happen if Red Bull indeed made a change: Pérez’s confidence would be in tatters if he were benched or demoted, and while the replacement would get a boost the two drivers passed over for a promotion would also be left questioning their position with the team.
So ultimately Red Bull faced a scenario where they fractured multiple relationships within the team for an uncertain result. Something about the devils you know seems to apply here …
To bring this part of the argument to a close, one last point on Pérez and where Red Bull may go from here. According to new reporting on Tuesday, one of the takeaways from Red Bull’s internal discussions Monday at Milton Keynes was that the team needed to do a better job of putting Pérez in a position to be successful. As reported by Motorsport:
It is understood that one of the outcomes of the discussions between Horner and Marko was that if Red Bull could find ways to give Perez more of what he needed from his car, then that was a better route to delivering results than throwing someone new in.
Horner’s tone in particular was notable on Sunday in Belgium when he suggested that what was needed was more support for Perez, rather than pulling the rug from beneath his feet.
“What’s frustrating for everybody is Checo struggling because nobody wants to see him struggle,” he explained.
“Everybody wants to see him succeed. The team has been and is right behind him. Everybody wants to see him succeed, because it hurts seeing him in the situation that he is in.”
While it is not clear what this extra support for Perez means going forward, it is likely to involve a root-and-branch review of everything around the Mexican and the team to make sure he is comfortable.
This could include improving the support structure around him, the people he works with, and the actual make-up of his car – with it widely understood that the direction of upgrades over recent months has taken a level of comfort away from him.
Instead of changing drivers, maybe Red Bull needs to change the car for Pérez.
The verdict
From my vantage point in the cheap seats, sticking with Pérez makes the most sense overall. He has a favorable schedule coming up and is on pace with his performance a season ago, and a change at this point in the season carries with it several unknowns, as well as the risk of causing further damage within the organization.
Of course, the ultimate verdict will not be rendered by me, but rather by the standings.
Should Red Bull hang on and secure the Constructors’ Championship, then their decision to stick by Pérez will appear to have paid off. Particularly if, as Horner seems to predict, he enjoys a strong run of form at the upcoming circuits left on the schedule.
If, however, his swoon continues and Red Bull fumbles away the Constructors’ Championship, and the millions that come with that accomplishment, it is also easy to predict the stories that will follow.
