Sergio Perez has revealed more information around the timing of his Red Bull exit, explaining his future “became clearer” around the Qatar Grand Prix.

Perez agreed an exit from Red Bull after a drop-off in form to make way for Liam Lawson at the start of the 2025 season, who himself has been rotated out of the Red Bull seat for Yuki Tsunoda ahead of this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix.

Sergio Perez reveals timing of Red Bull exit negotiations

Perez signed a new contract with the team partway through 2024, before his form dropped off alongside Max Verstappen and the team decided to promote from within in the form of Lawson.

It was announced in the days following the 2024 season concluding that Perez would be leaving the team, but the Mexican driver revealed that, while he had some warning, the run-in meant there was not much turnaround time between his exit being negotiated and announced.

“Everything happened really late in the season,” Perez revealed to Formula1.com.

“I wasn’t really expecting it to happen. It only became clearer once we were in Qatar, and we started to discuss and negotiate my exit of the team. It all happened very quickly.”

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As for now, Perez is spending time with his family as he explores his options to potentially return to the grid in 2026, having not ruled out a return to Formula 1 in future.

He remains supportive of Red Bull, however, having helped the team to two Constructors’ Championships in his stint with the Milton Keynes-based squad.

Perez also offered words of support for Tsunoda, who makes his Red Bull debut at his home race at Suzuka this weekend, believing him to have the “right mentality” to occupy the seat alongside Verstappen.

But as for his own struggles last season, he attributed it to the “very simple” feeling of not being able to extract everything from the RB20.

“I really want the team to do well, as I have a lot of friends at the team,” Perez said.

“I spent four years with them and I want to see them doing well. It’s just a very hard thing to talk about.

“Right now, I’m on the outside, I’ve been in touch with some team members there – but when you’re not there internally, it’s hard to know [what’s happening].

“For me, it was very simple, the car is just quite difficult to get 100% out of it, to get the confidence out of it – and the things I struggled with, even Adrian [Newey] talked about them.

“But I want to wish them the best. Woody [Richard Wood], who is a great friend of mine, is engineering Yuki now so I really hope they do well.

“Yuki has the talent, has the speed and, more than that, you need the mentality to cope with it.

“I think he has the right mentality and the right attitude to cope with it. I hope they will succeed.”

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