Sergio Perez will be hoping to prove to Red Bull that he deserves to see out his 2025 contract at the upcoming Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The longest Formula 1 season in history comes to an end on Sunday at the Yas Marina circuit but it could also be the finale of Sergio Perez’s time with Red Bull.
Perez’s time at Red Bull appears to be over, but it’ll be interesting to see whether he gets a proper send off after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The Mexican driver has remained defiant throughout the second half of the campaign when he survived a potential axing from the team during the summer break.
At his home Grand Prix in Mexico City he was adamant he would still be racing for Red Bull during the 2025 edition of the race, but that appears to be a long shot now.
His performances simply haven’t been good enough and even though the car has become very difficult to driver, he’s too far away from Max Verstappen to justify being retained.
That brings up the conversation of who could replace Perez for 2025.
Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson are the obvious candidates as part of the RB set-up, but there are also several drivers who are set to become free agents.
Tom Clarkson and Alex Jacques discussed one of those options on the F1 Nation Podcast.
Carlos Sainz believes Red Bull overlooking him did him a favour, but another option would have been Valtteri Bottas.
Bottas has lost his Sauber seat but Jacques believes he was never in contention to join Red Bull.
Alex Jacques says Red Bull never considered Valtteri Bottas to replace Sergio Perez
Clarkson was talking about Sauber’s performance in Qatar and said: “Also, both of those drivers are out next year.
“Neither of them has a race seat in Formula 1. There’s talk of Zhou maybe becoming the third and reserve driver at Ferrari, I don’t know what Valtteri’s plans are maybe going back to Mercedes.
“Is he tapping on the door at Red Bull a bit still?” to which Jacques simply replied, “No.”
READ MORE: Sauber driver Valtteri Bottas’ life outside F1 from girlfriend to wine and gin
Jacques and Clarkson then discussed how Perez appears to be out of the door at Red Bull and Clarkson asked who could replace the 34-year-old.
He reiterated that he thought Bottas was the best option available to Red Bull but Jacques retorted: “I could name you lots of people, Helmut Marko doesn’t think he’s any good. So, it’s not going to happen.
“And that’s the reality that however the power dynamic shift at that team Helmut Marko has never thought he was he was a top driver.
“I think he’s a very talented driver. He was brilliant for Mercedes at doing that, they’re not going in that direction, are they?”
What Helmut Marko has said about Valtteri Bottas that makes Red Bull move impossible
Bottas was previously asked about whether he would consider driving for Red Bull next year if the opportunity arose.
He admitted that ‘somebody’ at Red Bull ‘doesn’t like me’, which turned out to be Helmut Marko based on his previous comments.
Marko has a big say on Red Bull’s driver line-ups and has been very keen to continue to promote the young talent he’s in charge of developing.
READ MORE: All you need to know about Red Bull Racing from engine to Ford links
Ted Kravitz couldn’t believe Marko didn’t like Bottas, but in the past Marko called the Finn a ‘loser’.
He said back in 2022 ahead of his move to Alfa Romeo, via Motorsport Week: “That’s the big difference between him [Perez] and Bottas, who is a loser when it comes to overtaking.
“He’s super fast, but he can’t overtake in traffic.”
The irony is Perez has been the driver stuck in too much traffic this year considering how poor his performances in qualifying have been and that is ultimately one of the reasons why he may be about to take part in his final Grand Prix for Red Bull.
