‘No better pay driver in F1’ than Sergio Perez with estimated Red Bull worth revealed

Sergio Perez will not be announcing his Formula 1 retirement at the Mexican Grand Prix, as has been suggested, because there is “no better pay driver in Formula 1”.

As VCARB waved farewell to Daniel Ricciardo after the Singapore Grand Prix, it was suggested in some quarters that Perez could follow him out of the Red Bull door with ‘a plan’ in place to announce his retirement at his home race in Mexico.

There is ‘no better pay driver in Formula 1’ than Sergio Perez

This was rubbished by Perez , who drew inspiration from Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Jordan Belfort from the ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ film, who quashed speculation about his own future by saying: “I’m not f***ing leaving!”

That message will be welcomed by Red Bull team boss Christian Horner.

Although it has long been speculated that Perez’s days could be numbered as his on-track form continues to hamper Red Bull in the Constructors’ Championship, off-track he brings a lot to the team.

An estimated “thirty to forty million dollars” to be precise.

That has ex-F1 team manager Peter Windsor claiming as long as there’s still belief that Perez can do the job on track for Red Bull, as he almost did in Baku, there’s no better “pay driver” for the job in the eyes of team boss Christian Horner.

“It is unthinkable that they will replace him before Mexico,” Windsor told F1Maximaal.nl . “If they want to replace him, they also have to keep the money from the Mexican sponsors in mind.

“From Red Bull’s perspective, the company probably won’t see that sponsorship money as significant, but I think for Christian Horner it is significant, because if Christian does his job well, and I assume he does, then he won’t assume that Red Bull’s financial contribution will always be there. He will assume that in a few years, they might spend less money on Formula 1.

“If that’s the case, the team needs to become financially self-sufficient. If Perez brings thirty to forty million dollars a year to the team, and is quite fast, then there is no better pay driver in Formula 1. You can look at it that way too.”

F1 contracts: Made to be broken?

👉 F1 2024 driver salaries revealed: Who are the highest-paid drivers on the grid?

👉 F1 driver contracts: What is the contract status of every driver on the 2024 grid?

Red Bull conundrum: Points versus sponsorship

Windsor though, does concede that other drivers could score more points in the RB20 but doubts they’d be able to bring in Perez’s level of sponsorship.

“Red Bull might score more points and suffer less damage if they had a slightly better driver in the car. So the question is how they want to weigh these sporting achievements against the sponsorship money and the other financial interests,” he continued.

“There are many good drivers available, but how much money do they bring with them? Not really much. The question is whether they are that much faster, and whether they bring a lot of money.

“Look at Liam Lawson, Daniel Ricciardo, or even Esteban Ocon, when he was available. Maybe Yuki Tsunoda can bring some Japanese money, but I think people misjudge how difficult it is to raise sponsorship money in Japan. Yes, Japan has Honda, but Red Bull will no longer be in the same team with Honda. It would be difficult for Tsunoda to bring more than three or four million to the team.”

He reckons only Zhou Guanyu with his Chinese sponsors and Lance Stroll with his billionaire father have the same financial clout as Perez’s backers. Neither, though, have Perez’s pace.

“Zhou Guanyu has the same budget, but is he faster than Sergio Perez? I don’t think so,” he said. “Who else has money? Lance Stroll, but he’s not leaving Aston Martin, so there’s no one else available who can bring serious money.”

He added: “I think Red Bull wants to generate money with that other car, if possible, without compromising the performance too much.

“At the moment they have the money, but the performance is not optimal, so that balance has to be re-examined, but I don’t think that will happen for Mexico.”

Perez, the only driver out of the top four teams not to win a race this season, is eighth in the Drivers’ Championship with 144 points, 187 behind Max Verstappen .

Read next: Helmut Marko’s ruthless Daniel Ricciardo verdict with more exit reasons shared