"I told you man, why the f**k you don't check?": Sergio Perez rages at his race engineer during the F1 Abu Dhabi GP qualifying

Sergio Perez’s F1 future has been under speculation as he could leave the Red Bull seat after the 2024 Abu Dhabi GP. Tensions ran high during Qualifying and Checo slammed his race engineer Hugh Bird for not checking and reporting the track limits issue to the race stewards. But what exactly did Perez say and why did he say it?

Perez started the qualifying session on the front foot and put in an impressive banker lap in Q1. The lap was fast enough to sit out the remaining session. However, he was found guilty by the FIA for exceeding track limits and his lap time was deleted. The Mexican suggested his race engineer check with the stewards as he always had at least one wheel inside the track limits.

Bird did check with the stewards team and Perez's lap time was reinstated. Unfortunately, by then he had already gone out and set another lap time, which forced him to use a fresh set of tires. The Mexican was furious when his engineer told him about the lap being reinstated.

“I told you man, why the f**k you don't check. We just wasted a set of tires,” Sergio Perez said (via F1TV live).

“Everyone apart from Max has gone out on a new set, everyone but Max. Max is pushing,” Bird replied.

“Yeah, yeah. But it's irrelevant to me what others do,” Checo then said.

However, this wasn't the only chaos that took place in Q1. Kevin Magnussen knocked a bollard onto the track, which was collected by Lewis Hamilton on his final Q1 run. The seven-time champion, in his last race for Mercedes, was eliminated in Q1 and will start the race in P18.

It is being reported that the Abu Dhabi GP result will be taken into consideration before deciding Perez's future.

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Sergio Perez and Red Bull negotiating a deal around Mexican’s contract

Sergio Perez was given a 2-year contract extension midway through the 2024 season. However, Horner came out and suggested that the contract was given that early because of all the podiums scored by him in the first five races of the season.

Sergio Perez at the F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi - Qualifying - Source: Getty

According to the latest reports, Red Bull is negotiating a deal with Perez to either end the contract early or push him into an ambassadorial role. Speaking about the contract extension, Horner said.

“Obviously at the time, Sergio was performing extremely well. I think he had four podiums in the first five races. And in order to settle his mind and extend that run of form for the rest of the season, we elected to go early, which obviously didn't work. So, that's just life sometimes.”

Liam Lawson is rumored to be the No.1 candidate to replace Perez at Red Bull with Isack Hadjar possibly stepping into the VCARB seat for 2025.