After a difficult Abu Dhabi GP which he retired from on the opening lap after contact with Valtteri Bottas, Sergio Perez has admitted for the first time that his future in F1 might be in the balance, as he revealed there will be talks with Red Bull’s bosses in the days after the season finale to try and “reach an agreement” that would work for both parties.
It is understood that Perez will inevitably lose his seat alongside Max Verstappen for the 2025 season, as the Mexican’s underwhelming performances in 2024 have majorly cost Red Bull a chance to take the constructors’ title for a third consecutive season, as not only did the trophy go the way of McLaren, the Milton Keynes-based squad slipped to a disappointing third behind a resurgent Ferrari in the second half of the 2024 season.
And whilst the six-time Grand Prix winner was always adamant that he would be on the grid in 2025 with a high confidence and certainty in his speech, he finally let slip in his post-race interview in Abu Dhabi that it might not be as clear cut as initially thought, revealing there are set to be discussions with Red Bull’s top management following the race, in which they’ll try to “reach an agreement” over what will happen in 2025:
“Well, at the moment, I don’t know,” he said when asked about his future at the team. “I just know I’ve got a contract to race next year. Unless something changes in the coming days, that’s going to be the situation for next year.
“I think at the moment, all I can say is I’ve got a contract, that I signed up in the middle of the year to race for the team for the next two years. So we’ll see what happens and how the conversation goes in the coming days.
“Like I say, we’re going to be talking in a couple of days. We will discuss what is the situation for both parties and see if we’re able to reach an agreement. Like I say, I’ve got a contract for next year.”
It is believed that Perez could reach an agreement to take an ambassadorial role at Red Bull from next year, with Liam Lawson stepping up from VCARB to take the Mexican’s place in the senior team alongside Verstappen.
Speaking of his disappointing race in Yas Marina, Perez revealed that he already had an engine issue even before making contact with Valtteri Bottas’ Sauber at turn six, which meant he couldn’t fully recover his clutch and had to retire early on, parking his car near a marshal post in the final sector of the opening lap.
In a somewhat reflective mood, the Red Bull driver believes the challenging weekend – which started with frustration in Q1 as he had a lap disallowed that was then reinstated, which meant he wasted a set of new soft tyres for no reason – was a summary of what has been a “complicated” season:
“The engine was damaged before the touch. Every time I changed the clutch, the clutch slipped, I think we had the problem before. Then came the contact, I don’t know who hit me in the back. When I recovered the car the clutch was stuck.
“I think it was a very complicated race, a complicated balance [of the year]. It makes a good summary of what has been this season. This end of the race is a good summary of the season.
“Undoubtedly, in the end we drivers depend a lot on our environment, on our car, how much you can get 100 percent out of it. This year I had a car that I could hardly get 100 percent consistently, it was very complicated throughout the year.”
