Red Bull and Sergio Perez will wait for the first races of the 2024 Formula 1 season to get a “clearer picture” about whether team and driver will stay together.
Perez is under contract with Red Bull until the end of 2024 and team boss Christian Horner has insisted that the Mexican will start the year alongside Max Verstappen despite his lackluster form of late.
However, speaking to “DAZN”, Perez hinted that he could leave the five-time constructors’ champion on his own terms if he felt he could no longer contribute.
Perez: Stay another year and then we’ll see
He says: “I also want to be in an environment where I feel like I can contribute something, and if that space isn’t there for 2024, we’ll have to look for other alternatives.”
Ahead of this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, Perez adds that the first races of next season will help him and Red Bull make an early decision on their continued collaboration.
“For me, I’ll stay here for another year and then we’ll see. That’s my view of things. I think we want to finish this year as competitively as possible and start next year. And I think early next year we’ll have a clearer one Have a picture of what the team wants to do and what I want to do.”
Is Sergio Perez too slow?
Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko and Horner have repeatedly stated that the prerequisite for Perez is to finish second behind Verstappen in the drivers’ standings.
While Perez is currently in second place, 145 points behind his team-mate, there are concerns that he will not be close enough to Verstappen when a bigger and more consistent threat from rivals such as Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin and McLaren arises in the future should appear.
After making his Formula 1 comeback in Hungary before breaking a bone in his left hand at Zandvoort, AlphaTauri driver Daniel Ricciardo has been heavily linked with a return to the main Red Bull team in 2025.
What kind of environment does Sergio Perez need?
When asked what Perez means by saying he needs a good environment to feel like he can stay at Red Bull if the decision was his, he replies: “Being able to deliver the results , for which you have the car.”
“I feel like I won’t be able to do that sometimes this year. But as I always say, it just depends on where you finish in Abu Dhabi. Until then we were able to recover and the “To achieve the necessary consistency. All I’ve learned this year is that you can’t do anything alone.”
“You need the team around you, you need the team to support you and vice versa. As a driver you have to believe in it and fully commit. We have made a lot of progress so that I can ride more naturally. I definitely feel like that I go back to what I did in the beginning as far as driving the car.”