Christian Horner’s best quotes about Sergio Perez including ‘you’re supposed to go’ rebuke

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Red Bull have officially confirmed that Sergio Perez has lost his Formula 1 seat for the 2025 season. Liam Lawson is due to replace him as Max Verstappen’s teammate.

Christian Horner handed Perez a contract extension back in June, confirming that the team would retain their line-up. But he didn’t envisage the wretched run of form that followed.

Verstappen has won the drivers’ title in each of Perez’s four seasons. But they’ve failed to win the constructors’ in two of those campaigns.

Perez is the first driver ever to ‘cost’ his team two championships in this fashion. He collected just 152 of Red Bull’s 589 points.

Ironically, Perez matched Jos Verstappen’s record by finishing outside the top seven as the world champion’s teammate. Crucially, though, the Dutchman didn’t complete the whole season alongside Michael Schumacher at Benetton in 1994.

Now, the axe has fallen and Red Bull have sacked Perez with his contract for the 2025 season terminated, making Horner’s decision look even more ill-conceived. So, F1 Oversteer has looked back at Horner’s best comments about Perez.

Christian Horner said one Sergio Perez performance made ‘no logical sense’

Speaking in June, Horner marvelled at Perez’s ability to ‘bounce back’. The pressure was starting to increase despite the apparent security of his new deal.

“Whenever the pressure’s really been on, and it’s on at the moment, he’s always been able to bounce back,” he said. “He’s going to need to dig deep to do that.”

By the summer break in August, Daniel Ricciardo was expected to replace Perez at Red Bull. But the Mexican survived a critical shareholder meeting, and Horner informed the factory Perez would stay.

“Checo remains a Red Bull Racing driver, despite all the speculation of late,” he said. “We look forward to seeing him perform at circuits where he has done well in the past, after the summer break.”

One of those circuits was Azerbaijan, where he’s claimed two of his six career wins. Sure enough, he outqualified Verstappen for the first time all year.

Horner was baffled by Perez’s display, though the weekend ended in heartbreak as he collided with Carlos Sainz in pursuit of a podium in the final laps. The team principal even claimed he’d win a championship in a season contested solely at the Baku City Circuit.

“I have no idea [why he’s so fast],” Horner said. “It makes no logical sense in that it’s high-speed, straights with armcos, barriers, 90-degree corners. But he’s always been magic around here and I think that if we had a 24-race championship in Azerbaijan, he’d be pretty tough to beat.”

By the end of the season, it was pretty clear from the Englishman’s tone that he wanted his second driver to step aside, having seen him score just 51 points since the Miami GP. Horner implicitly urged Perez to walk away following the Qatar GP at the start of December.

“He’s old enough and wise enough to come to his own conclusions,” the 51-year-old said.

He’d finished last in the Saturday Sprint race after allowing fellow pit-lane starter Franco Colapinto pass him when the light went green. Horner publicly disagreed with Perez, who claimed he’d done this deliberately.

“It looked like he just misjudged it,” he told Ted Kravitz. “But when the light goes out, you’re supposed to go.”

Sergio Perez’s remarks about Max Verstappen before Red Bull debut have aged woefully

This isn’t the first time Red Bull have ‘kicked out’ Perez. He was abruptly dismissed when he tested for the Milton Keynes outfit during his junior days.

He would return in 2021 as a Grand Prix driver following his release from the Racing Point squad. If he thought this was the move that could make him a world champion, he received a rapid reality check.

Perez said Verstappen didn’t worry him before he made his debut for the team. He’s since been on the wrong end of one of the most one-sided driver line-ups in F1 history.