Sergio Perez issues verdict on how Lewis Hamilton would fare as Max Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate

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Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen are not only fierce rivals, but they are also two of the most successful drivers ever in F1 history after defining the past two decades.

The 2025 F1 season may be only the second year since the 2014 campaign in which neither Hamilton nor Verstappen has won the drivers’ championship. McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are striving to deny Red Bull star Verstappen his fifth consecutive title this year.

Only Nico Rosberg when he won the F1 drivers’ championship in 2016 has so far interrupted the dominance that Hamilton enjoyed from 2014 to 2020 and Verstappen has relished since 2021. Piastri currently leads Norris by 14 points and Verstappen by 40 in the 2025 standings.

Haas rookie Oliver Bearman considers Verstappen to be the greatest F1 driver of all time, as well, having watched the Dutchman rise up the record books in recent years. Only Hamilton (105) and Michael Schumacher (91) have more Grand Prix wins than Verstappen (68) so far.

Sergio Perez thinks Lewis Hamilton would ‘struggle massively’ as Max Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate

Verstappen is also fifth for all-time pole positions with 47, in another aspect where Hamilton holds the record with 104 poles to date. The Red Bull racer is also level with Sebastian Vettel in third for podiums with 122, behind Hamilton’s record total of 202 and Schumacher’s 155.

READ MORE: How Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen’s careers compared after 200 races

Yet despite all that seven-time champion Hamilton has achieved since the now-Ferrari driver debuted for McLaren in 2007, Sergio Perez is adamant that he would “struggle massively” as teammates with Verstappen for Red Bull like the Mexican experienced from 2021 until 2024.

Perez told Sky Sports’ The F1 Show about the problems Liam Lawson and now Yuki Tsunoda have experienced at Red Bull in 2025: “I don’t like to criticise the drivers, because I was in that position. I know exactly what they’re going through.

“As soon as I signed my exit with Red Bull when we came to an agreement, I knew that ‘poor guy who comes here’, because I managed to survive. It’s a very difficult place. Obviously, being next to Max is very difficult, it’s something that people don’t understand.

“There are so many things I could tell you about it but, simply, it’s just a very difficult job for a driver. There is no driver who could survive there. It doesn’t matter if you bring Hamilton or [Charles] Leclerc, or whoever you bring there is going to struggle massively.

“As a driver, it is really difficult because you have to think all the time [about] how to drive it. When you’re thinking all the time [about] how to drive the car, you know what happens.”

Max Verstappen drives around Red Bull’s issues, but Lewis Hamilton has struggled to adapt at Ferrari

Red Bull paid Perez £15.5m to terminate his contract for the 2025 F1 season in December, as the 35-year-old’s woes cost the Milton Keynes natives their defence of the constructors’ title to McLaren. Perez earned 152 points to Verstappen’s 437 during a 24-round season in 2024.

READ MORE: Seven best drives of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes career before Ferrari move

But while ex-Red Bull boss Christian Horner came to regret his decision to hand Perez a new contract for 2025 in June 2024, the team did not profit after replacing him with Lawson. Red Bull have also continued to fight single-handedly with Verstappen since promoting Tsunoda.

Verstappen has regularly been the only driver since Daniel Ricciardo left Red Bull at the end of 2018 capable of extracting the most performance out of their car, which the team largely set up based on what they believe is the quickest package and expect their driver to adapt.

While Verstappen drives around issues in Red Bull’s cars, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Perez and Lawson did not and Tsunoda cannot. Hamilton has struggled to adapt to Ferrari’s car in 2025 after 12 years at Mercedes, too, so Perez could be right to feel he would struggle at Red Bull.