Sergio Perez’s father Antonio Perez staunchly defended his son’s underperformance in F1 this season while taking a jab at Ralf Schumacher. The former F1 driver had predicted that Sergio could be out of Red Bull later this season. However, Antonio’s comments had some alleged homophobic elements that did not go down well with Schumacher. In July this year, the former Williams driver came out of the closet to openly reveal his same-sex relationship.
He received a lot of support from the F1 community for the same. However, Antonio was perhaps high on emotions, which is why he perhaps dragged the topic of Schumacher’s same-sex relationship after the German condemned his son’s performances.
“The journalist [Schumacher] first declared that Checo was already out of Red Bull and the following week he came out of the closet. I don’t know if he was in love with Checo, if you understand me. There are many strange things. He no longer knows if he’s a journalist, a woman, or a man”, the 65-year-old said in ESPN’s Racing podcast.
On this, Schumacher calmly responded via his Instagram, “I would also stand behind my son 100% and try to help. That’s how you do it as a father. Regarding the style, I would be different, but we know Mr. Perez with all his emotions. That’s why I’m not mad at him. However, I think the track results would be the better argument.”
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The German former driver seems to have avoided getting into a verbal war with Antonio. Given the nature of his journalistic gig, he is used to getting backlash on his opinions and perspectives. While the alleged homophobic tone would have certainly probed him, Schumacher has been very calm and collected about accepting his sexuality which led to his public revelation.
As for his comments on Sergio, he isn’t wrong about Red Bull pondering over replacing the Mexican driver, given the massive performance deficit the 34-year-old has to Max Verstappen. Still, it is unknown whether the team will sack Sergio for the 2025 season or not.
Sergio seems confident about staying at Red Bull despite his bad form
Time and again, Sergio has reaffirmed that he will be staying at Red Bull for 2025 as he has a contract with them. However, the Austrian outfit has considered the possibility of letting him go and signing someone else like Liam Lawson, who recently replaced Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull’s sister team RB. While the team is monitoring Lawson’s performance, there are also reports of Red Bull looking to secure Franco Colapinto from Williams.
But from Sergio’s perspective, his seat is not under threat, given the abundant amount of sponsorship money he brings to the team. The Mexican’s sponsorship backing by companies owned by business magnate Carlos Slim could once again save his F1 future.
There is a notion that Red Bull doesn’t want to lose out on these sponsors and their incoming cash flow. But that seems to be coming at the potential cost of Red Bull losing out on the Constructors’ championship with Sergio not scoring enough points to beat rival teams like McLaren and Ferrari.
