Perez brushes off Red Bull future concerns

Sergio Perez is optimistic that he can bounce back with Red Bull despite his challenging season continuing last time out in Las Vegas, with the Mexican brushing off any concerns over his future by voicing his hopes for what he can achieve in 2025.

It proved to be another tough outing during the weekend in Nevada as Perez suffered his sixth Q1 exit of the campaign in Friday’s qualifying, forcing him to put in another recovery drive come race day which saw him cross the line in P10.

Despite this, Perez suggested after the race that he was “closing to turning things around” heading into the final two Grands Prix of the season. When asked ahead of this weekend’s penultimate event in Qatar about whether the improvements centred around the set-up of the car or his ability to drive around any issues, the 34-year-old explained: “I think with the set-up we are coming closer.

“Probably in Vegas we didn’t have the pace that we had in Sao Paulo, but I think there are some promising signs that things are coming. We were not so competitive in Vegas in terms of team order, but I believe that here should be a good track for us.”

Reflecting back on his 2024 campaign in general, Perez gave an insight into why his promising start was followed by struggles as the year progressed.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - NOVEMBER 22: Sergio Perez of Mexico driving the (11) Oracle Red Bull Racing — Perez claimed P10 in the Las Vegas Grand Prix after a difficult qualifying session saw him again exit in Q1

“It’s been one of my best starts to the year, with four races consecutively on the podium – things were looking great,” the six-time race winner said. “But as soon as we came back to Europe, I think our season took a U-turn. Other teams improved and found a lot of performance, on our side we got a bit lost with the car.

“There were a lot of weekends where things were not coming in, a lot of weekends have been too difficult just in regards that we are looking at all the areas [of the car], and at the end of the day there is only so much you can do on a weekend that we ended up losing a lot of points and the season turned out to be quite a lot more difficult.

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“But I think it’s how it is in Formula 1, sometimes things don’t go your way. We’re still here and optimistic we can turn things around as a team, especially for next year.”

Pushed to explain further why things had changed so much since those good races earlier in 2024, Perez responded: “I think it’s very difficult for people to understand that are not part of team, or around on a daily basis, why from one race to another you are so far away.

“I think when you are not able to extract 100 per cent out of your car, it’s irrelevant how good the car is and [this] is what has happened. I haven’t been able to extract 100 per cent out of my car because of the difficulties I’ve had in the last few months with it, and I think that’s the main issue.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - NOVEMBER 21: Sergio Perez of Mexico and Oracle Red Bull Racing prepares to — Perez says that he and the team are working hard to make improvements together

“I think as a team we are understanding and we are working hard to make sure that we can fix [the issues].”

While Perez signed a two-year contract extension with Red Bull back in June, his recent difficulties have led to speculation over his future at the squad. When quizzed on whether there was any doubt over if he should be racing for the team next season – and if the outfit should focus on the data rather than the statistics – Perez answered: “I think, at the end of the day, the team has all the information, there is so much I can say here.

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“There’s a reason why we extended my contract during the year, and the team has everything [they need to know]. We exactly know where we are in terms of performance, in terms of issues, difficulties that we’ve had.

“We are a team and we know exactly internally where everything stands, so we’re working really hard as a team to come through and get back into a much better season than the one that we just had.”

And when asked again if he could say with 100 per cent confidence that he will be driving for Red Bull next year, Perez responded: “Yeah, exactly.”