Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner has given his clearest indication yet as to who would fill Sergio Perez’s seat at the team in 2025 should Red Bull and Perez decide to part company.
With four top three finishes in five Grand Prix of 2024, Perez struggled for the remainder of the year, tallying only 49 points between Imola and Abu Dhabi, which was fewer than the points he earned in the season’s first four weekends.
The one that saw Red Bull, challenged for so much of the year, fall to third in the constructors’ by the end of the season, behind McLaren and Ferrari, even though Verstappen won his championship in two rounds. However, if the second Red Bull had scored the same 437 points as Verstappen, the team would have had over 200 points difference with the next team in the constructors’ standings.
Although Red Bull gave Perez a two-year contract extension in June, the Mexican’s results have spurred speculation that he will be replaced for 2025 – although Horner suggested that his choice would be between the two current RB drivers Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda, who made his first-ever Red Bull test in Abu Dhabi this week.
Asked about the performance of Lawson in 2025 – the New Zealander having replaced Daniel Ricciardo at RB from the United States Grand Prix – Horner replied: “I think Liam, in challenging circumstances, has done a very good job. If you analyse what he’s done in the time that he’s had and the race pace he’s had, I think he’s done a good job.
“I think Yuki’s done a good job, so in the event that anything were decided with Checo they would be the candidates we would look towards.”
Horner also addressed the next steps in the process with Perez, as Red Bull work out how they can get back in the constructors’ fight in 2025.
“Obviously those discussions will happen between Checo and the team. Now [we’ve got] the season out of the way, we’ll sit down with him and reflect on the season and obviously where it’s gone wrong and collectively work out what is the right and appropriate way forward.
Checo has been a great server to this team, going back to this race [in Abu Dhabi] in 2021, the contribution that he made, 2022 and 2023 constructors’ championships, five race victories, second in last year’s drivers’ championship, so he’s done an awful lot for this team and we’ll sit down and reflect on this season and how we move forward.
“There’s no immediate rush,” added Horner. “We have all of the permutations available to us internally, so I think the first thing is to sit down with Checo and have that conversation now that the season’s completed.
“Sitting here now, he’s still our driver, so it would be wrong for me to speculate on what next year may look like until he and I have sat down.”
Horner did say, however, that it was “crucial” for Red Bull to have “two drivers that are scoring on a regular collective basis in the constructors’ championship”.
“Horner conclusions: ‘Ferrari will be strong with their line-up next year, McLaren have a strong line-up, Mercedes will have an inexperienced driver in one of their seats.” “And so for us it’s very important that both of our drivers are delivering and there’s not a significant gap.”
As for Tsunoda, the Japanese driver was tight-lipped on his future after testing the RB20, telling the media after the Abu Dhabi test: “[It was] very fun! I mean it is the first time when I driving a different car in the last four years [and] I can feel what this car is fighting for the championship. I guess I feel a relatively big difference from what I was driving [and this].
We had such a productive day The work we accomplished was so rewarding even though some of it was the hardest work I have ever done. People are like “am I happy now?” Are they? No, they are never more happy than they are now with COVID and all.