What Christian Horner told Red Bull factory staff after confirming Sergio Perez’s future

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Sergio Perez’s future in F1 has been a hot topic after speculation over whether Red Bull might drop him over the summer break.

Crunch talks took place between the Red Bull team’s management on Monday, including team principal Christian Horner and Helmut Marko.

The Mexican’s seat was said to be under threat after Max Verstappen has so far scored the bulk of their 408 points in the Constructors Championship with seven wins. Perez’s last race win came at the Azerbaijan GP in April last year.

After another difficult race in Belgium where he dropped from second on the grid to eighth, before being promoted to seventh following George Russell’s disqualification, Marko provided a damning conclusion of Perez’s race saying he “completely collapsed” as it progressed.

This led to many believing that his time was up with Red Bull, but according to De Telegraaf, Horner addressed the Milton Keynes factory over Perez’s future ahead of the mandatory two-week shutdown.

Christian Horner addresses Red Bull factory over Sergio Perez’s future

After difficult qualifying sessions and costly mistakes, the chances of the 34-year-old remaining in the team appeared to slim every weekend.

Red Bull was reportedly going to hold an audition between Daniel Ricciardo and Liam Lawson in a 2022 AlphaTauri this week, whereby it was billed as a shootout for the seat at the top team.

While there was no official outcome of the meeting between Red Bull management, there is understood to have been a moment when Horner addressed the ongoing speculation over Perez.

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

Sergio Perez is a continuity option for Red Bull

When Red Bull renewed Perez’s contract in May, it came days after he cost them millions of pounds in damage in a big crash at the start of the Monaco GP.

It was the beginning of the poor run of form that has plagued him since the Miami GP, with his average finishing position dropping to 9th place.

Questions rightly pointed to whether it was financially viable to keep him in his seat considering two big crashes in Canada and Hungary, considering F1 teams must keep to a strict £122 million budget cap that includes crash damage. It was subsequently reported that Red Bull would need to pay £3.8 million to buy Perez out of his current arrangement with the team.

He was always seen as the continuity option amid unrest at the team at the beginning of the season and clearly not wanting to create more negative headlines, Red Bull has decided to stick to what it knows rather than make a gamble.

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You could say Ricciardo is a known quantity but the team has spoken previously about his change of habits since he last raced for them, while Lawson did not do enough to impress Red Bull engineers in a post-race test at Silverstone.

Logically, the best option would have been to go with former Red Bull driver Carlos Sainz, but he has now been snapped up by Williams to replace Logan Sargeant in 2025.

Red Bull now faces a credible threat in the Constructors’ Championship from McLaren and if Perez fails to pull his weight, they will only have themselves to blame.