Christian Horner’s Drive to Survive comments about hiring Sergio Perez will haunt him after Red Bull exit

Follow us on Google Discover

Sergio Perez is no longer a Red Bull Formula 1 driver after months of speculation regarding his future with the team.

The Mexican failed to take in podium in his final 19 races for them as Max Verstappen romped to a fourth consecutive Drivers’ Championship.

Red Bull will promote Liam Lawson to his seat after a battle with Yuki Tsunoda, his now ex-Visa Cash App RB teammate.

Perez’s career is now up in the air, with limited options going forward and no openings until the start of the 2026 Formula 1 season.

Red Bull could be making a £5.4m saving on Perez as he steps back from a race seat, but it depends on how much they are paying Lawson now.

The likes of Cadillac, Alpine and ex-team Aston Martin could all be interested in the Mexican’s services for the future but he will need to prove that he still has the pace somehow.

Christian Horner saw ‘cracks’ in Sergio Perez during 2022 F1 season

Red Bull retained the 34-year-old for four seasons in the end and his 2024 campaign was by far Perez’s worst in terms of performance.

Perez suffered from a very difficult braking issue which hurt both his pace and confidence throughout the year.

Finally, team boss Christian Horner has had enough after watching the Constructors’ Championship fall into the hands of McLaren.

READ MORE: Red Bull have changed their mind about signing ‘trojan’ F1 star as their reserve driver for 2025

Speaking to Netflix’s Drive to Survive cameras back in 2022 (Season 5, Episode 7), the Red Bull CEO was already showing signs of impatience with Perez’s form and it may haunt him looking back.

“Hiring Checo was a bit of a risk,” said Horner. “At 32 years of age, he’s in the senior years of his career. You know, you start to see cracks and sometimes, as a team principal, you’ve got to make big calls.

“There’s probably half the grid that would like to be in the team, whether it be Daniel Ricciardo, Lando Norris could be on the market. Even Yuki.”

Did Perez deserve another season with Red Bull in Formula 1?

There’s an argument to say that because Perez had earned a contract to drive with Red Bull for the 2025 season he deserved to complete it.

However, in a results-based world, his performances were well below par and not even at a level where his own team could defend him.

READ MORE: Jolyon Palmer explains why he thinks people are ‘overplaying’ how much Red Bull dropped off in 2024

Verstappen gave Perez an ‘excellent’ teammate verdict which may have boosted his chances of being kept around for a while, but couldn’t shield him from the on-track mistakes and crashes that he had in 2024.

A burnt clutch in Qatar, a similar issue in Abu Dhabi, a spectacular crash at the Monaco Grand Prix and a heavy shunt in Hungary all did him no favours on top of the lack of pace.

He scored 9.5 fewer points than Verstappen on average. If he had managed to halve that deficit, he would have picked up a further 114 points this season – more than enough for his team to win both titles.