Sergio Perez no longer felt “comfortable” in the Red Bull team with his exit coming following the 2024 season.

That is the claim put forward by Jimmy Morales, director of the Escuderia Telmex team which sponsors Perez, who mentioned “many issues” being at play in the divorce between Perez and Red Bull at the end of 2024.

Sergio Perez Red Bull exit: ‘Didn’t feel comfortable anymore’

Facing the prospect of departing Formula 1 after 2020 – following a season in which he scored his first F1 win at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix with Racing Point – Perez received a career lifeline after being signed by Red Bull for 2021, the team which he remained with until his departure after the 2024 campaign.

Perez and Red Bull parted ways following a challenging 2024 season for the Mexican racer, despite that year having agreed a multi-year contract extension with the team.

After scoring four podiums in the opening five races, Perez then went without for the rest of the year as his form spiralled, with Liam Lawson taking his place at Red Bull for F1 2025.

And in an appearance on the Formula de 2 podcast, Morales shed some further light on Perez’s Red Bull exit.

“There are many interests at play,” he began.

“Whether it’s fair or not, the internal pressure and Red Bull’s advice… There are too many issues involved.

“Our driver didn’t feel comfortable anymore.”

The split came after the 2024 season had already ended, which Morales claims scuppered Perez’s chances of landing an F1 2025 drive elsewhere.

“They [other teams] had already signed other drivers by then,” he confirmed.

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Speculation over Perez’s Red Bull future rumbled on throughout much of 2024, with the summer break at one stage widely expected to have been the point where they would go their separate ways.

But, Perez would return for part two of the season and saw it to its end.

And with Perez now out of the Red Bull door, Morales would address their senior advisor and driver programme boss Helmut Marko, revisiting “strong clashes” he had in the past with the often blunt Austrian, who Perez apparently proved wrong with his F1 career.

“We already knew Helmut Marko,” said Morales. “He already had strong clashes with me when we were just in Formula 3.

“He said to me: ‘This driver is not going to make it’, and guess what? He even made it to the team that said he wasn’t going to make it. We gagged him like the big boys.”

With Lawson stepping up to Red Bull as Max Verstappen’s new team-mate – having only contested 11 grands prix with Red Bull junior team VCARB across two stand-in stints – Isack Hadjar was promoted from Formula 2 after his runner-up finish in the 2024 championship to partner Yuki Tsunoda.

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