Explained: Everything we know about Sergio Perez’s Red Bull future

The next two weeks could be amongst the most important in Sergio Perez’s F1 career, as all sorts of speculation swirls about his future.

Just two weeks and two races are left before the mandatory summer break kicks in, a period of time Red Bull has used on numerous occasions in the past to bring about change in their team’s driver line-ups.

Why is Sergio Perez’s future at Red Bull under threat?

To be clear, there hasn’t been an official kick up the bum for Sergio Perez from Red Bull to make it crystal clear that his seat is actively in danger to the point of a replacement being imminent.

In fact, Perez’s strong start to the season earned him plenty of praise from Red Bull’s higher-ups, particularly from Christian Horner as the Mexican driver finished the first quarter of the season capably backing up Max Verstappen with second place in the Drivers’ Championship.

But, with other cars closing the gap as F1 returned to Europe, Perez has completely fallen off the boil. Having scored over 100 points in the first six races of the season, Perez has scored just 15 points in the second quarter of the year.

Struggling just to bring home points places, podiums seem unthinkable at this moment in time, and Red Bull appear to be in genuine danger in the Constructors’ Championship. Max Verstappen has won three of those six races, but there’s no doubt that McLaren, Mercedes, and, sometimes, Ferrari, have closed the gap to compete with the RB20.

With only one driver scoring points, against a two-driver onslaught at each of the other teams, Perez’s contract situation has been brought into question. Despite having recently signed a two-year extension, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has hinted, darkly, at how the summer break will be used to determine what changes, if any, will be made.

“The fact is that the Constructors’ Championship is very important for the team and all employees,” he told F1-Insider . “Because the better we do there, the more bonus payments each individual employee will receive.

“That means that Sergio Perez has to deliver and is under pressure.”

But while Perez is under pressure, Marko said he and Horner believe the veteran can still pull himself out of his slump.

“We expect Sergio to pull himself together again. He has already managed to get out of a form of crisis several times in the past,” he said.

“Any other driver would not look good against Max either. Max is in the form of his life and is still getting better.”

Why are the next two race weeks so important?

The summer break has been used by Red Bull on numerous occasions to bring about change in their organisation, usually by swapping around drivers between the main team and the sister squad (which was rebranded as VCARB for 2024).

The most recent mid-season Red Bull Racing change was in 2019, when Pierre Gasly was demoted back to the then-Alpha Tauri squad in order to replace him with Alex Albon. Prior to that, in 2016, Red Bull had made the bold call to drop Daniil Kvyat back to the then-Toro Rosso squad in order to promote Max Verstappen – a move that has paid off handsomely in the years since.

With Marko stating the summer break is when any possible change decisions will be made, the four-week gap also offers a chance at a clean break – given the races come thick and fast with double and triple-headers galore, a driver swap during the summer break allows the drivers to mentally reset and prepare for the second half of the season if a change of environment is, indeed, decided upon.

“All Formula 1 contracts have exit clauses,” Marko told GrandPrix247.com, “most of them related to performance or let’s say for the top drivers. As I’ve mentioned before, we will have an evaluation during the summer break and then we will make a decision.”

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What are the rumoured performance clauses in Sergio Perez’s contract?

The details of any driver’s contract are always kept under lock and key, but PlanetF1.com’s research into the matter has led to an understanding that the performance clauses that have been alluded to by Helmut Marko are pretty straightforward.

Perez’s contract with Red Bull may include caveats that he cannot be swapped back to the sister team, but these can be overridden by such clauses. In this case, the door for Red Bull to make a change could be opened by being too far behind in the Drivers’ Championship.

To that end, Perez is believed to be required to be within 100 points of Max Verstappen as the summer break rolls around, ie. at the conclusion of the Belgian Grand Prix. With Verstappen the obvious benchmark for Red Bull, Perez being within 100 points equates to retiring from four races while the Dutch driver retires – meaning there’s quite a bit of leeway for Perez to hit that target.

However, Perez’s form has been such that he is currently 137 points behind his teammate at the halfway point of the season and with two races to go until that clause kicks in. This means Perez will need to outscore Verstappen by 37 points over the next two races in order to ensure the clause does not become available to Red Bull.

Given that Perez is almost six victories behind Verstappen after 12 races, it’s difficult to see the Mexican driver turning things around to the extent that he will be able to stave off the availability of this clause.

Which drivers could potentially replace Sergio Perez at Red Bull?

While the clause being activated would open the door for Red Bull to make a change, there’s no guarantee that a change will be made. Given Perez’s recent form has seen him secure just 15 points in six weekends, Red Bull has little to lose by swapping him for pretty much anyone available – but Perez has shown he is perfectly capable of strong results when he is in control of his destiny.

But, with the possibility of change in mind, it appears Red Bull is now in evaluation mode as to who could be the best candidate for the seat. Yuki Tsunoda, despite his impressive form for VCARB, is understood not to be under consideration for the seat, but Daniel Ricciardo’s recent improvement in form has brought him into contention.

Ricciardo, who raced with Red Bull between 2014 and ’18, leaving the outfit after two and a half years partnered with Verstappen, was brought back into the Red Bull fold before last year’s summer break. This was with an eye to seeing whether the Australian could recoup his old form and, while he hasn’t quite managed that, he has shown improvement over the past 12 months.

As a known quantity and having previously thrived in the Red Bull car and environment, Ricciardo’s departure from VCARB would also return the Faenza-based squad to its usual remit of being a training ground for Red Bull’s juniors.

“It has now been confirmed by all decision-makers that Racing Bull [VCARB] will be a junior team again in the future, which mainly has training purposes,” Marko said recently.

“There are still three races until the summer break. We will then sit down together and make decisions that go in this direction.”

This would suggest that the most likely outcome is for Ricciardo to slot in at Red Bull, and allow Red Bull to pop Liam Lawson in alongside Yuki Tsunoda for next season – meaning a parting of the ways with Perez entirely.

Another outcome, less likely, is that Lawson impresses enough to be granted a 10-race stint with Red Bull to evaluate him ahead of 2025, leaving Ricciardo at VCARB – but this would seemingly be at odds with Marko’s recent comments.

There’s also the possibility, even less likely, that Red Bull plumps for an external hire, such as springing a surprise by signing the available Carlos Sainz – the Spaniard reached F1 with Red Bull support, and previously drove for the Toro Rosso squad. This would likely spell the end of Perez, and possibly Ricciardo, at Red Bull.

What has Christian Horner said about Sergio Perez?

Horner has been reluctant to dig the boot in with Perez, acknowledging that some drivers need an arm around-the-shoulder approach while, with others, a more harsh approach can work.

Clearly eager to see Perez deliver the kind of form that he has delivered in various spells during his four-year Red Bull tenure, it was notable that Horner also hinted the summer break is being viewed as a line in the sand.

“We can’t just rely on one car, so we desperately need Checo [Perez] to start scoring good 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’ll sit down after this race and look at what we need to do to the last two races before the summer break.”

Speaking to media, including PlanetF1.com, after a calamitous British Grand Prix, Horner said: “He knows it’s unsustainable to not be scoring points, we have to be scoring points in that car and he knows that.

“He knows his role and his target and so nobody is more eager than Checo to get back and find his form again.”

What has Sergio Perez said as the Red Bull pressure mounts?

Having escaped too much scrutiny during the Thursday press conference at Silverstone as Lando Norris took the brunt of the questioning, Perez spoke to the media following his disappointing race on Sunday and highlighted the importance of the next two weekends for himself.

“I think it’s a good time to have a bit of a break and get back for our form, hopefully for Hungary and Belgium, two very important weekends,” he said.

“I think there’s some light at the end of the tunnel, we had our strongest Friday for a while on Friday. But, at the same time, it was a very disappointing race.

“Other than that, it’s just making sure that we are in the ballpark with the balance, trying to make the preparation we need for Fridays and then things will be a lot better.”

As for the noise around his future, Perez again re-iterated the importance of the next two weekends.

“I know where I am in terms of contract and that sort of thing,” Perez said to media after the British GP. “I cannot let it be a distraction.

“I need to focus on the next two weekends, which are the priority, and together as a team, to get out of this difficult period.”

One man who has experienced exactly what Perez is going through at present is Pierre Gasly, having been dropped from the main team at the summer break in 2019.

Having rebuilt himself at Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri before jumping to join Alpine for 2023, Gasly said he suspects Perez simply can’t feel the RB20 under him.

“I think my situation was very different than Checo’s situation,” he told media including PlanetF1.com at Silverstone. “But I think right now, he is under big pressure.

“I don’t really know what to say to be fair. He is a good driver, everybody knows it but he doesn’t seem to get his things together, whether it’s himself or coming from the team. I don’t know and can’t really comment on that.

“Ultimately, his problem at the moment is he doesn’t feel the car.

“Whenever you feel strong with a car you have, for whatever reason, an off weekend. Next weekend, you come back, you feel good, you put the strong laps in and you don’t even think about it.

“But he just doesn’t seem to be able to get the performance out of it, whether it’s coming from him or the team, I don’t know.

“But there’s clearly something that is missing at the moment between the two.”

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