Red Bull boss on Perez pressure as Lawson looms

By Alex Powell

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner has conceded the end might be nigh for Sergio Perez, whose future in Formula One appears under serious threat from Kiwi Liam Lawson.

Perez, 34, has struggled since he signed a new contract with Red Bull earlier this year, as the world champion’s season has imploded.

This week’s Mexican Grand Prix results saw Red Bull slip to third in Formula One’s constructors championship, with Ferrari taking second place to McLaren.

And while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen leads the drivers championship with 362 points, Perez sits eighth, with just 150 in the same car. Of those 150 points, 85 of them came in the first five races of the year, before he signed his new contract.

To make matters worse for the Mexican driver, who was last of the finishing cars in his home Grand Prix, since Lawson’s return to the sport earlier this month the Kiwi has been touted as Verstappen’s partner in 2025.

While the Kiwi was only afforded six races to end 2024, it is widely understood his stint is an audition to step up into the senior team next season.

In Austin, Lawson took ninth place after starting 19th, before outqualifying Perez in Mexico. And when the two clashed on-track, Lawson came away victorious and Perez suffered damage that ruined his race.

As team principal for Red Bull, Horner will have a decisive say over who fills the team’s second seat next year.

Earlier this year, Horner and team adviser Dr Helmut Marko backed Perez for the rest of 2024, despite a contract clause that would have allowed him to be sacked during the summer break.

Red Bull even went as far as organising a test drive for both Lawson and Daniel Ricciardo - who at the time was part of sister team RB, before being replaced by the Kiwi - as a means of assessing the pair against Perez.

However, Red Bull’s decision to keep Perez has ultimately backfired, and seen Horner admit change could be coming if the team are to have any hope of finishing higher than third in the constructors championship.

“Checo [Perez] again has had a horrible weekend,” he told Formula One’s official media channel. “Nothing’s gone right for him this weekend.

“He knows F1 is a results-based business and inevitably when you’re not delivering, then the spotlight is firmly on you.

“As a team, we need to have both cars scoring points and that’s the nature of F1. From the team’s perspective, we’re working with him as hard as we can to try and support.

“I think we’ve done everything that we can to support Checo, and we’ll continue to do so in Brazil next weekend, but there comes a point in time that you can only do so much.”

Tellingly, Horner also refused to condemn Lawson for his role in damaging Perez’s car during the Mexican Grand Prix, saying Red Bull and RB were “independent teams”.

Horner and Red Bull do have the ability to issue orders to RB, by Horner making the decision to terminate Ricciardo and install Lawson in his place.

While also possibly a coincidence, Perez’s major backer Carlos Slim has withdrawn the support of his company Telmex from Red Bull in 2025, as American telco AT&T has signed on as a sponsor.

Formula One continues at Interlagos this weekend, with both a sprint race and the Brazilian Grand Prix on Monday morning (NZ time).

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission