Where it all went wrong for Sergio Perez at Red Bull

Perez regrouped at Force India, gradually building himself up to be the team’s talisman, its rock-solid driver on track.

Eight seasons at the Silverstone team brought seven podiums including that famous Sakhir win and, aged 30, he was ready to kick on at a top level team in Red Bull for 2021.

Targeting championships at Red Bull

“If we have a car that can win the championship, I’ll make sure we win it,” Perez said upon signing for the Milton Keynes outfit. “And if not, and we only have a car that’s good enough for third I will make sure that we finish second. I’m going to make sure I overdeliver.

“I am always pushing to the maximum and last year I finally had a car that I could show a bit more and people saw what I am capable of, but now is my big opportunity. I have to go onto the next step in all aspects and I think I’m ready for it. The only thing I was lacking was the opportunity.”

The Mexican was justified in his words. He had always overdelivered for Force India/Racing Point, the team which in recent seasons had got so much more out of its limited resources than McLaren, Williams, Renault and others.

Perez also acknowledged that he hadn’t exactly covered himself in glory during his last stint with a big team in McLaren, and was ready to put that chastening experience to good use.

“When you’ve been through it before, it just makes you focus on the right stuff,” he said.

“And technically you develop a lot of skills as well throughout your career. The opportunity comes in a great point of my career, and it’s going to work out well.”

Five races to get comfortable and then victory

When his Red Bull debut season got underway in 2021, Perez made a solid but hardly spectacular start.

Qualifying 11th and finishing fifth on his Bahrain debut, it took him six races to score a podium – but when he did he was on the top step.

Perez had said he needed five races to get his head around the Red Bull, and he was right.

Running third in the closing stages of Round 6 at the Azerbaijan GP, Verstappen’s late race puncture and Lewis Hamilton’s botched restart handed the Mexican the win at the death.

“I am so, so happy for today,” he said in the aftermath. “The race, normally Baku is pretty crazy. I have to say I am very sorry for Max because he did a tremendous race and he really deserved the win. It would have been incredible to get that 1-2 for the team but at the end, it is a fantastic day for us.”

Perez’s form for the rest of season now could be taken as an indicator for things to come. While team-mate Verstappen was fighting tooth-and-nail for his first title with Lewis Hamilton, Perez was knocking around in fourth to sixth place most of the time.

Though not setting the F1 world alight, he did manage four more podiums in 2021, but it was at the infamous 2021 Abu Dhabi finale where he truly proved his worth.

Acting as Verstappen’s rear gunner, Perez held up Hamilton who had fallen behind the Mexican after a pitstop (who was yet to come in), repeatedly getting back past the Mercedes driver just when a slightly-cautious Hamilton thought he had the move made.

This allowed Verstappen, who was closing in on the pair, to ramp up the pressure on the Brit. Although Hamilton would pull away again before that notorious safety car sequence, the gap wasn’t big enough to allow him to stop for fresh tyres without losing track position, which proved decisive.

Verstappen would clinch the title after Michael Masi’s intervention, Perez using the good vibes at Red Bull to carry momentum into 2022. What helped him was the 2022 car that initially came out of Milton Keynes at the dawn of the new regulations set.

He took three runner-up finishes in the first six races of ‘22, then capitalised on Ferrari’s strategy blunder in Monaco to win on the principality streets. He was effective in Azerbaijan too, beating Verstappen in qualifying to line up alongside Leclerc on the front row.

How had Perez managed to pull himself into the reckoning with his lightning quick team-mate?

Intentionally or not, Red Bull produced a machine which was less ‘pointy’ than its previous effort, and had less tendency for the rear to snap – much to Perez’s liking – as described by Mark Hughes.

“The biggest improvement in his performances came with the advent of the 2022 car,” he wrote. “No longer was the Red Bull an aggressively pointy challenge of a car with so sharp a rotation that only Verstappen could live with the feeling of rear instability that brought. That was what had made it so difficult for Perez – and Albon and Gasly before him – to even get close to Verstappen. Last year Perez qualified an average of 0.377sec off Max. This year so far the difference is less than a tenth.

“Perez by contrast [to Verstappen] was relishing the confidence this gave him, loved how the threat of rear instability which had so limited him last year, was gone.”

The first mid-season dip

Then it all changed. Verstappen flexed his muscles. This was his team, not Perez’s. If it wanted to win more titles, he reasoned, it would have to bend the car to his liking. This sentiment was supported by his father Jos’s comments after Monaco ’22.

“We all saw that it was a difficult weekend for him,” he said. “It starts with the car, which simply doesn’t have the characteristics for his driving style yet. Max has far too little grip at the front axle. And especially in Monaco, with all those short corners, you need a car that turns very quickly. That was just hard.”

The race after Baku, in Canada, the Red Bull had visibly more rake on it, giving it far more front-end grip. The car was back to Verstappen’s liking, and Perez was never really able to get back on par.

He would win again that year, in Singapore, but at that race Verstappen was out of the reckoning after having to abandon his final Q3 run due to his team miscalculating his fuel, starting eighth.

Dream of the drivers’ title in 2023

2023 would begin with promise too, as Perez won two of the first four races.

“We are in the fight. Vamos!” said Perez after winning in Azerbaijan again. “I am fighting for [the title].

“If I’m able to do it in Baku I’m able to do it anywhere.” he added. But he hasn’t. Perez hasn’t won a race since that day – April 30, 2023.

Though he would finish second as opposed to third in the 2023 championship, he scored fewer points than in 2022, while Verstappen won a remarkable 17 of the next 18 grands prix.

Perez’s form really tailed off during the 2023 run-in, scoring just one podium in eight races.

The Mexican rallied once more at the start of this season, taking home four podiums in the first five races, but since then he hasn’t mustered any. Not one.

Not only has it looked like Perez has been struggling once more with a car on the razor’s edge that also has a lack of appetite for bumpy circuits, he also seems to have generally lost confidence.

Red Bull’s No2 man has failed to reach the final stage of qualifying ten times this year. That his progress into Q3 in Qatar was seen as something of a success shows how badly this year has gone.

He was awarded a new two-year contract extension by Red Bull mid-season, but his form only seemed to get worse from there.

The nadir came at Qatar last time out when Perez, starting from the pits for the sprint, seemed not to notice that the lights had gone out. As a result Williams’ Franco Colapinto – also starting from the pitlane – overtook him before they were even on track.

The results make for the most painful reading though. Verstappen, crowned world champion for a fourth consecutive time with two races to go in Las Vegas, has scored 429 points to Perez’s 152.

If the Mexican had got anywhere close to Verstappen over the course of the season, it’s likely the team would have won the constructors’ title, but instead it’s going to finish third.

Young driver guru Helmut Marko has alluded to the hit that morale has taken in the Red Bull factory with one driver winning the title, but staff missing out on bonuses because of its failure in the constructors’ – mainly due to Perez.

“We thought the contract would help,” said Red Bull boss Christian Horner after he qualified last at the British GP. “I think it’s something that Checo is working very hard on, and he knows this is a sport where there’s no hiding.”

With no notable improvement however, it’s clear the team has been considering other options.

It had hoped Daniel Ricciardo, installed at RB midway through last season, would show the speed indicating he was ready to return to Red Bull, but that didn’t materialise.

Its other two options are in-house drivers – the quick yet temperamental Yuki Tsunoda, who Red Bull appears not to trust, or the largely untested Liam Lawson.

The robust character of the latter makes him the favourite, but it’s still a tough choice for Red Bull, one the team looks like it will have to take, with the writing now apparently on the wall for Perez.

“We will fully support him until the chequered flag drops in Abu Dhabi. Whatever he decides after that is ultimately his decision,” said Horner in Qatar.

“He’s old enough and wise enough to draw his own conclusions. But there’s still one race to go. Now let’s get Abu Dhabi out of the way and then we’ll see where we stand.”

The way it does stand, it looks like Perez will become yet another driver to be chewed out of the Red Bull racing machine – his F1 career over.