Red Bull will not be short of options of the F1 champions decide to replace struggling star Sergio Perez when his contract expires at the end of the 2024 season
Sergio Perez needs to make a lot of progress, according to Red Bull ambassador David Coulthard, if he hopes to keep his job with the team.
The Mexican’s present contract expires in a year. And currently, following a very unimpressive third season as Max Verstappen’s teammate, Red Bull will be weighing all of their options.
While the Dutchman consistently got the most out of the fearsome RB19 to romp to the title, Perez found things trickier. He managed second place in the championship but, given the car he had, should have wrapped that up many weeks before he actually did, in the penultimate race.
There is plenty of speculation over the 33-year-old’s future as a result. Red Bull plan to honour their contract with him, but will no hesitate to replace him in the middle of next season if his performances and results do not live up to the required standard.
Coulthard, a 13-time F1 race winner, thinks improvements will be needed if Perez is to save his Red Bull career. “Checo wasn’t as far away from this team-mate as some but, unfortunately for him of course, when Max was winning and he’s not finishing second, it really puts a very difficult spotlight on him,” the Scot said on his Formula For Success podcast.
“He’s survived it, but he’s definitely going to, in my opinion, have to do some serious work over the winter to fully understand or accept the differences between him and Max. At the beginning of the year, he was talking about the world championship battles and he was kind of getting his shoulders and his chest out.
I suspect part of that was his management team who are not only there to see him try and win Grand Prix but to sell him commercially. So, if the message is this guy’s a world champion in waiting, then that helps the negotiations. I think now they probably need to take a slightly different view which is he is the best partner to a Max, a phenomenon and then you can knuckle down.”
The reality is, given Red Bull’s place at the very front of the grid, there are a whole heap of drivers who would jump at the chance to replace Perez should the opportunity arise. And the team is in the strong position of having a couple of very capable drivers already on the books.
Daniel Ricciardo has made no confidential of his longing to get back to the seat he cleared quite a while back to escape from Verstappen’s shadow, and has the following season at AlphaTauri to demonstrate he’s actually got it. Also, partner Yuki Tsunoda has been making consistent upgrades, getting the attention this year with his initial and late-season structure specifically.
Outer choices are likewise present, for example, Lando Norris who has been needed by Red Bull for quite a long time. There remain inquiries about whether he would be ready to leave McLaren, who maintain that he should sign another arrangement, however regardless of whether he and the group concludes they need a preferable choice over Ricciardo or Tsunoda, then Carlos Sainz could possess all the necessary qualities seeing as Ferrari don’t appear to be focused on the Spaniard.