Sergio Perez is fighting to secure his Red Bull future in the final races after a disappointing 2024 season.
The Qatar Grand Prix has been another weekend to forget for Perez, having been eliminated early in Sprint qualifying and later only finishing 20th after being overtaken by Franco Colapinto in the pit lane before he reached the first corner.
The Mexican effectively used the Sprint race to gather data to improve his car balance, having struggled with front-end understeer for most of the weekend.
It proved to be valuable as Red Bull turned around their fortunes and went from being the fourth quickest to the fastest in qualifying for the Grand Prix, with Max Verstappen setting the fastest lap and Perez improving to ninth place.
Perez is under immense pressure to deliver at Red Bull, with a meeting set to take place after Abu Dhabi to determine whether the Milton Keynes outfit will continue with him beyond 2024. Anthony Davidson has highlighted one reason why his Qatar GP performance will be ‘soul-destroying’ when discussing his future on Sky Sports F1.
Anthony Davidson thinks Sergio Perez deficit to Max Verstappen is ‘soul-destroying’
Perez believes Red Bull should look at the data instead of 2024 performances when deciding on his future for next season, but more often than not he has regularly been nearly a second slower than Verstappen.
The Mexcian finished qualifying ninth tenths adrift of his teammate, which Davidson believes will be hard for Perez to come back from this weekend.
“It must be soul-destroying for him. Every time getting into the car instead of thinking ‘Can I take the fight?’ he’s thinking ‘I wonder how much distance I’m going to be this time?’,” said Davidson.
“It’s like nine-tenths today, usually throughout this weekend it’s been seven-tenths and it’s just got bigger and bigger even though the car has improved and got easier to drive so no wonder he looked forlorn.”
Sergio Perez costing Red Bull a fortune in prize money
Although he brings in a considerable amount of sponsorship, with Mexican company Telmex paying Red Bull £102m since they signed Perez along with a further £23.5m in sponsorship deals from Disney+ and KitKat, it appears the team is growing frustrated.
After Perez was caught napping at the start of the Sprint in the pit lane by Colapinto, Christian Horner remarked when speaking to Sky Sports: “When the light goes green, you’re supposed to go…”
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It showed that patience over Perez is now starting to wear thin, as they realise he has likely cost Red Bull millions in prize money by finishing third in the Constructors Championship. Jenson Button has expressed his surprise that Red Bull would keep Perez, despite his 2025 contract.
Colapinto has been touted as a potential successor, although Red Bull need to pay £20m to release him from his Williams contract, while Liam Lawson is also waiting in the wings but has yet to put in any impressive results.
