Sergio Perez will not be on the grid for the first time since 2010 after losing his Red Bull F1 seat to Liam Lawson.
The Mexican driver endured a miserable campaign and his streak of 19 races without a podium ended up costing his team a better place in the Constructors’ Championship.
Perez could make a return in 2026 but he will have no choice but to sit out for next season after losing his seat so late in the year.
The new Cadillac team could be an option for him but there’s going to be some hot competition for that seat.
Ex-boss Christian Horner thinks Perez’s 2024 season got ‘very tough’ from the Monaco Grand Prix onwards, after suffering a mega lap one shunt.
Perez could move to another series for 2025 in a bid to convince potential suitors that he can rediscover his prime form, but that could also backfire.
Tom Coronel ‘couldn’t understand’ why Red Bull kept Sergio Perez for so long
Red Bull had multiple opportunities to pull the plug on Perez’s season early and test someone else out next to Max Verstappen with a view to picking their 2025 driver line-up.
Things started to trend negatively for him from quite an early stage in the year. After a disastrous Canadian Grand Prix, his confidence never seemed to recover.
It would have been harsh on him to be dropped, but it may have helped to save their aspirations of a third successive championship double.
Speaking to RacingNews365, Tom Coronel detailed how he would have let the 35-year-old go sooner than he was.
“I couldn’t understand that Perez really finished the season,” he said. “I really don’t understand it at all. In Canada [I would have let him go] because you saw it all. You just saw that it wasn’t in it.”
Will Liam Lawson be an upgrade on Sergio Perez at Red Bull?
Perez’s replacement will be Kiwi driver Liam Lawson, a driver with just 11 races of experience at the highest level.
He lost the qualifying battle 6-0 to ex-teammate Yuki Tsunoda over the last quarter of the season with Visa Cash App Racing Bulls.
His race pace was more encouraging though and is one of the reasons why he managed to beat his more experienced colleague to the opportunity.
READ MORE: Christian Horner once believed 153-race driver owes his entire F1 career to Red Bull
It would be harsh to expect Lawson to rock up at the Australian Grand Prix next year and compete with Verstappen from the first lap.
However, he will be a marked improvement on Perez, considering that he is just 22 years of age and has plenty of upside to go with his talent.
