Just days after losing his race seat at Red Bull, it has emerged that Sergio Perez will remain with the Milton Keynes-based outfit in 2025 as he is set to participate in a number of show runs next year.
Red Bull announced last week that Sergio Perez will leave the team with immediate effect as the Milton Keynes-based outfit and the Mexican driver have reached an agreement to part ways ahead of next season.
The decision put an end to the speculation of recent months, and means that the Mexican driver will leave the Austro-British outfit despite the deal that would have seen the 34-year-old driver race for the team until the end of 2026.
The Guadalajara-born driver joined Red Bull in 2021, and helped his team-mate Max Verstappen win his first championship title that year, playing a pivotal role at the title-deciding 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
However, he has failed to deliver a consistent performance over the last couple of years. Perez has won five races with Red Bull, and finished second in the Drivers’ Championship last year, but he has endured periods during which he simply struggled for outright pace in qualifying.
After a strong start to the 2024 season, Red Bull elected to extend his contract by a further two years which would see Perez race for the Milton Keynes-based outfit until at least the end of the 2026 F1 season. However, the Mexican struggled for pace after his contract extension.
Although Perez is believed to pursue options to return to Ferrari next year to race in the FIA World Endurance Championship with the Scuderia, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has confirmed that the Mexican will remain involved with the Milton Keynes-based squad by completing a number of demonstration runs in 2025.
Reflecting on Red Bull’s decision to replace Perez with Liam Lawson, Horner told talkSPORT: “No, it’s a little different to that. Sergio has been with us for four years and, for the first three years, he played a huge role in the team and certainly that first Drivers’ World Championship.
“You’ve only got to think back to Abu Dhabi ’21, the role that he played for the team on that day; Constructors’ Champions in 2022/23; he was second in the Drivers’ Championship last year.
“He’s just had a really tough year this year and we sat down last week – we’d obviously been talking about it a little bit beforehand – and decided that it was right for both of us, just to step back, for him to step out of the car, take a bit of time with his family, work out what he wants to do.
“He’s still going to be involved with the team. He will be doing a couple of show runs with us during next year. But it was right for him – because it wasn’t enjoyable for him either, getting all this scrutiny and pressure and expectation every weekend.”
Pushed on to reveal how Red Bull was able to replace Perez despite his existing contract, Horner answered: “He had signed a new contract, but of course in those contracts [there are clauses].
“I’m not going to go into the details of the contract, but inevitably there are stipulations, there are obligations between the team and the drivers. We sat down and we talked it through. It’s about relationships and we’ve always had a great relationship with Sergio.”
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