If Sergio Perez had lost his Red Bull seat after 2023, he would have justifiedly known why. The kind of season the Mexican driver had with so many incidents and inconsistent performances, it is surprising that a ruthless Red Bull outfit still retained him. While there may be reasons to keep Perez for the last year of his contract, the #11 driver knows he needs to perform better, or else the doors are wide open for his exit from RBR.
Perez underscored the same sentiments by highlighting his shortcomings from 2023 in an interview with Auto Hebdo. As quoted by Formule1.nl, he stated, “I want to perform more regularly and build momentum. I missed that progress last year. It started very well, on par with Max, but there was no progress during the season.”
“Sometimes we even went backwards. So that will be my priority: to progress during the season, regardless of what my starting point will be. I just have to keep improving every weekend.”, said Perez.
The Red Bull driver admitted how he made mistakes after the good races in the first five to six weekends. This included his qualifying rendezvous with the barriers in Monaco, collisions while overtaking cars in Singapore and Japan, and his crashes that led to DNFs in Qatar and Mexico.
Perez knows he needs to avoid such mistakes and be in the mix with Max Verstappen more consistently. If the Mexican driver carries on his 2023 form, he may easily lose his seat for the 2025 season at Red Bull. Perez’s underperformance was clear considering the points difference he had with Verstappen.
As compared to Verstappen’s 575 points, Perez only scored 285 points, which is almost half of the Dutchman’s tally. The former Force India driver struggled all season long with the setup of the car and just could not extract as much pace as Verstappen did. The 34-year-old will now hope to reverse this situation with the 2024 challenger.
If Sergio Perez loses his Red Bull seat, who could replace him?
As things stand, Red Bull are very supportive of Sergio Perez and want him to do well in 2024. However, just in case they decide to drop him for 2025, who will the Milton Keynes outfit sign up in the Mexican’s place?
Daniel Ricciardo is the prime contender in line to replace Perez for 2025. After earning a mid-season call-up to AlphaTauri (now V-CARB) last season, Ricciardo has perhaps found his mojo back and seems determined to return to Red Bull.
Even team boss Christian Horner has cited that the Australian driver is in their scheme of things, which seems to be wide open as Perez’s contract expires at the end of the 2024 season. So, the Honey Badger having previous experience with Red Bull will give him an edge if he impresses the top bosses with his performances.
Besides Ricciardo, even Yuki Tsunoda has an outside possibility to earn a Red Bull call-up. Though Tsunoda improved a lot last year, it will be difficult to say if the Austrian team would want to place a bet on the 23-year-old. Still, if the Japanese driver can impress Horner and Co. enough, a promotion to Red Bull Racing is not out of the question.
Lando Norris was the other outside possibility to replace Perez for 2025 or 2026. However, with his latest contract extension beyond the 2025 season at McLaren, Norris is not looking to jump ship to Milton Keynes. Either way, as his existing contract ran till 2025, Red Bull may have had to break the bank to onboard the Briton.
Coming back to Perez, with drivers in contention, he has to deliver in 2024. While Horner and Helmut Marko support him, the man from Guadalajara knows it is a do-or-die situation for him this season.
