If we thought Sergio Pérez’s slump in performance couldn’t get any worse after last year, his run of form since the 2024 Emilia-Romagna GP has managed to put his future in the sport in jeopardy. With him finishing the season in a lowly eighth place and his teammate Max Verstappen securing his fourth successive drivers’ championship, this massive gulf in performance has relegated the Mexican driver to the 21st position in Pit Debrief’s F1 2024 driver rankings.
A strong start to the season
Despite how his 2024 campaign unfolded, Pérez had a fairly decent start to the season. In the first six rounds, he made four trips to the podium, including three second-place finishes in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Japan. Moreover, his double overtake on Sainz and Alonso during the Sprint race in China has recently won him the ‘Action of the Year’ award at the 2024 FIA Prize-Giving gala.
Even Pérez’s pace over a single lap showed adequate promise in the first few races of 2024. Although Verstappen out-qualified him 23 times over the course of the season, the 34-year-old qualified in the top five until the Miami GP that took place in early May. His qualifying highlights comprise the front row starts in Suzuka and Shanghai.
Falling off a cliff after the Miami GP
It might be a shocking statistic, but Pérez scored more than double the points in the first six races (103) than he did in the remaining eighteen races (49). As McLaren and Ferrari gathered momentum with stronger line-ups this season, Red Bull slipped down to third place in the championship standings due to his considerable underperformance.
Christian Horner has acknowledged that the development direction Red Bull took in Barcelona last year marked the beginning of the Mexican’s struggles and that they didn’t take his concerns seriously. However, one would hope that a driver with fourteen years of experience would be able to somewhat adapt to a tricky car and deliver acceptable results on track.
Following a third-place finish in the Miami Sprint earlier in the year, Pérez failed to finish in the the top 3 for the rest of the season. During the same period, the Mexican driver also managed to register six Q1 exits. Furthermore, he scored only 9 points over the last eight Grand Prix weekends, including a single point over the last triple header of the season.
Amidst these underwhelming results, the only time Pérez found himself confident in the RB20 was during the race weekend in Baku. After outpacing Max Verstappen in qualifying for the first and only time in 2024, he was within striking distance of his fifth podium of the season. However, a dramatic collision with Carlos Sainz on the penultimate lap of the race meant that he went home empty-handed.
Future up in the air after a disappointing 2024 campaign
Although Red Bull offered him an early renewal in June this year, the 34-year-old’s future in the team now appears to be at risk. After a series of dismal results that cost the Milton Keynes squad the constructors’ title this season, it is imperative that they switch up their driver line-up for 2025.
In fact, both Pérez and team principal Horner have conceded recently that a meeting after the season finale in Abu Dhabi will determine whether Red Bull would retain the Mexican for the upcoming season. Unless some ironclad clause gets in the way, it is fairly certain that reigning champion Verstappen will race alongside a new teammate in 2025.
Why Pérez’s 21st position in the F1 2024 driver rankings is justified
Some might question how finishing in the top eight of the championship standings warrants the second-lowest position in the F1 2024 driver rankings. However, if you take into account the fact that Pérez was languishing 285 points behind his world champion teammate when the chequered flag fell at the Abu Dhabi GP, the verdict no longer appears to be harsh.
When it comes to the F1 2024 driver rankings, one can expect more leniency toward a rookie. The plethora of mistakes committed by an experienced driver like Pérez, however, ought to be put under the microscope. While some of the missing performance can be attributed to the RB20 not suiting his driving style, a gap of nearly 300 points to his teammate is simply inexcusable.
