Sergio Pérez‘s future at Red Bull will be on the agenda as team principal Christian Horner and advisor Helmut Marko meet on Monday to discuss the team’s faltering 2024 season.
Pérez’s poor form over the past races and the resurgence of McLaren has seen Red Bull’s constructors’ championship lead whittled down to 42 points going into the summer break.
Sources have told ESPN there is a very real prospect of Pérez being replaced by either RB’s Daniel Ricciardo or Red Bull reserve driver Liam Lawson before the Dutch Grand Prix on Aug. 25.
Pérez appeared to have made a turnaround in qualifying at the Belgian Grand Prix, but he faded during the race itself.
Asked after the race if he was disappointed with Pérez’s performance, Horner simply said: “I think based on his starting position, we didn’t envisage finishing eighth from second on the grid.”
Racing advisor Marko was more blunt about Pérez’s performance.
“Sergio had the opportunity to take a good result from second place,” he said. “Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Especially in the last stint, he completely collapsed.”
An immediate decision is not expected to be taken on Pérez, with Ricciardo and Lawson both set to take place in a content filming day at Imola in Italy this week.
While mileage is always limited at such events, sources say Red Bull use the day to evaluate the two alongside each other. Although the prospect has diminished recently, there is still a scenario where Ricciardo is dropped for Lawson at RB.
Monday’s meeting is expected to set the stakes for the Ricciardo and Lawson test, especially if Horner and Marko feel the threat of losing the constructors’ championship outweighs other concerns.
Marko added: “For us, the situation is such that we will also go through the overall situation for 2025. We have a number of drivers and we have a concept.”
Horner downplayed the importance of the Monday meeting.
“We’re constantly analysing it,” he said. “We’ve got a meeting, but it’s not just about Checo [Pérez]. We have other topics on the agenda as well, which we always do going into the summer break.
“For us, extending the lead going into the summer break for Max, will give him a better rest. I think for us, the focus is on the constructors’, where we’ve seen another seven or eight points taken off us today. We need to turn that around coming out of the break in Zandvoort.”
Horner has never publicly said Pérez’s seat is under immediate threat but it has been made clear that is the case privately.
He referenced the decision facing him on Sunday evening after the race at Spa-Francorchamps, even though it still appears to be an outcome he wants to avoid.
“Nobody wants to make that decision,” Horner said. “Obviously you guys talk about it every day. But in the team, we want to get [Pérez] going, we want to understand, give him a car, you see glimpses, his race pace last weekend was strong.
“He had the fourth-best race pace in Budapest, but he had a difficult Saturday with a crash in qualy, he did a good job yesterday. To be five-hundredths off Charles [Leclerc] on a scrubbed set of tires, and put it on the front row was a tremendous effort. Today, his race faded.
“Of course, you take so many things into consideration, but it’s been a great partnership between the two of them. Checo, he’s a great team player, he’s a massive team player, and that’s why he was selected, that’s why we took him at the end of 2020 to put alongside Max.
“He’s won what, six, seven races for us, second in the world championship last year, goodness knows how many podiums. It’s been the most successful combination we’ve ever had as a driver pairing. What’s frustrating for everybody is Checo struggling, because nobody wants to see him struggle. Everybody wants to see him succeed.
“The team has been and is right behind him, everybody wants to see him succeed, because it hurts seeing him in the situation that is.”