23 December 2024
It looks like the end for Sergio Perez’s F1 career after 14 years. Unless he can somehow find a route back onto the grid for 2026, perhaps when Cadillac-Ferrari arrives with two brand new seats on offer, Perez will remain with Daniel Ricciardo, Kevin Magnussen, Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu on F1’s driver scrapheap. There’s probably a recency bias in the perception of Perez as the latest driver destroyed by Max Verstappen’s brilliance. It’s easy to forget, amid Perez’s difficulties in making things work at Red Bull, that there were days when he delivered truly formidable, world class performances in his four years with the team. But he’s been badly exposed as Red Bull’s rivals have become increasingly competitive over the past 18 months - with drivers who appear to fundamentally operate at a higher level than he can. That’s ultimately why, despite originally offering Perez a new contract covering 2025 and 2026, Red Bull is now making yet another change to the non-Verstappen part of its driver lineup.
