Up until now, talk of Sergio Perez leaving Red Bull has been due to a team decision but for the first time, the driver has admitted he has his doubts about staying on.
The Mexican is into his fourth season with Red Bull but with his contract up at the end of the year, it remains to be seen if this will be his last at the team.
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Perez’s place in Red Bull has seemingly been under threat since midway through the 2022 season when Max Verstappen started to dominate while Perez’s form went in the opposite direction.
With Daniel Ricciardo hired in 2023, many thought Perez may not survive until 2024 but a P2 in Bahrain suggests he is capable of providing exactly what the team wants.
As for what he wants, Perez has for the first time hinted that it may be his decision to leave and not the team’s.
“I think it’s really early to say that,” he told Sky Sports when asked if he wanted to continue into 2025. “I want to wait a few races to see how everything goes.
“It’s obviously not easy or straightforward. [The seat] has some complications that we’ve seen in the past. We’ve seen great drivers, they don’t even survive six months or a year and they’ve been great drivers but it’s a unique team in that regard.”
Perez was interviewed by Naomi Schiff and she believed the 34-year-old had accepted his place in the team.
“I felt that he was reasonably confident,” the former W Series driver said. “I think the last part of last season was really tough on Checo, a lot of that by his own doing but the criticism around him, the scrutiny, the pressure, it just seems to be quite a lot.
“It feels like he really has taken a step back since the winter to think about everything that happened, try to understand how he could perform better but being teammates with Max Verstappen has already proven to multiple drivers to be an incredibly difficult thing.
“Something I wanted to understand from him is how do you survive that pressure? And it feels to me as though he understands his position in the team now and he just wants to put together some solid results.”
Karun Chandhok also believed there could have been a shift in mindset from Perez.
“I wonder if there [has] been acceptance in his head over the winter that actually, I’m not here to win the World Championship for this team. I’m not here to win races, I might win a few but that’s a bonus,” he said.
“I’m here to finish second to Max Verstappen but I guess if I keep doing that there’ll be the odd day where Max, something doesn’t quite work and you’ll get the odd win like you did here last year. That’s a difficult mental shift to make but if he’s done that, it’ll be in a happier place and a happier Checo will be a better Checo
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