Christian Horner delivers Sergio Perez verdict after Hungarian GP as he fights to save Red Bull seat

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Sergio Perez is a man under more pressure than arguably any other driver on the Formula 1 grid right now.

Although there are a handful of drivers who don’t have contracts for next season, it’s Sergio Perez’s future which looks to be in the most doubt at this stage.

Perez could be removed from his seat during the summer break should Red Bull want to make a change to their driver line-up.

The Hungarian Grand Prix couldn’t have gone much worse for Red Bull as they lost ground in both championships.

Max Verstappen was furious on the team radio throughout the race, with Red Bull’s strategy called into question.

Verstappen then made contact with Lewis Hamilton in the closing stages, meaning he lost further ground on his closest championship rival Lando Norris.

The only silver lining for the Dutchman was Norris ceding the lead of the race to Oscar Piastri in the final laps, costing him seven points in the process.

For Perez, all of his focus was on recovering after another disappointing qualifying session.

Christian Horner was speaking to F1TV after the race and gave his verdict on how the Mexican fared.

He had a tough job on his hands and didn’t get off to the best start from the eighth row of the grid.

However, he eventually converted a 16^th-place start into a 7^th-place finish, matching his best finish since the Miami Grand Prix.

Unfortunately, that’s still not good enough with McLaren making a huge dent in their lead in the Constructors’ Championship.

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Christian Horner delivers his verdict on Sergio Perez’s performance at the Hungarian GP

Asked how Perez fared, Horner said: “I think that was a strong race for Checo, to come back from where he was, dropping behind Russell at the start in the first stint but having the pace to move ahead and finish P7 from P16.

“It’s a good recovery, his pace in the race was pretty competitive.”

Perez went long on his first stint and was stuck behind George Russell for nearly half of the race.

It put them in a precarious position with the rest of the field showing how powerful the undercut was.

However, Perez kept his tyres alive much better than his Mercedes rival and to deliver six points from the position he was in will be considered a relative success.

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Sergio Perez is still in danger of being replaced by Red Bull during the summer break

The worry for Perez is that clauses in his contract allow Red Bull to make a driver change after Spa if they desire.

It’s now mathematically impossible for Perez to close the 100-point gap necessary to avoid that clause taking effect, although it has to be said that Red Bull aren’t required to trigger it.

There are still concerns about all three potential replacements for Perez which is why nothing is set in strong when it comes to Red Bull’s line-up for the rest of the campaign.

Yuki Tsunoda isn’t considered an option by Red Bull despite leading Daniel Ricciardo in the Drivers’ Championship.

However, even though he suffered a big crash in qualifying, he scored another couple of points for RB.

Daniel Ricciardo continues to underwhelm alongside Tsunoda and Ricciardo’s long-term future at Red Bull is in doubt.

Reserve driver Liam Lawson is an option to replace Perez but there’s a real risk that he wouldn’t be an immediate upgrade on Perez given his inexperience.

The summer break shutdown might come at the worst possible time when Red Bull may want to put in the extra hours to decide on their driver line-up for the final 10 races of the season.