Red Bull makes Sergio Perez confession as the team gets ready for future beyond the Mexican

Red Bull boss Christian Horner has confessed that extending Sergio Perez's contract early in 2024 was not the best decision that the team made. The Mexican came into 2024 with a sword hanging over his future. The driver had not been as impressive in 2023, and the team was keeping an eye on Daniel Ricciardo to see if he could do the job.

This was precisely why the Australian was put in a Racing Bull car, alongside Yuki Tsunoda, so as to benchmark him and find where he stands in terms of performance. Perez, on the other hand, started the 2024 F1 season impressively. He secured multiple podiums at the start of the season and was doing the perfect job as the rear-gunner for Max Verstappen.

However, things changed when McLaren brought its Miami upgrade, and pressure started to build on Red Bull. During this time, Perez's performance also started to drop. To the surprise of many, Horner and Co. thought it would help the Mexican if the team offered him an early extension.

As it turned out, that didn't help. On the contrary, once the form started to drop, it never got up until the end of the season. While Verstappen would win the title in 2024, Red Bull finished third in the Constructors, and the bulk of the blame was put on Sergio Perez, who scored around 1/3 of his teammate's points.

Talking to PlanetF1, Horner admitted that the premature extension of the contract was a mistake. He said:

“It’s always easy to look with hindsight, and it’s impossible to know what anybody else would have done in that car. I mean, Sergio started the season so well – second in Bahrain, second in Jeddah, and tremendously fast in Japan, which is an ultimate driver’s circuit. From Monte Carlo on, the wheels came off his campaign and, from that point onwards, we just hemorrhaged too many points."

He added:

“We won more races than any other team this year by a significant margin and had as many pole positions [as McLaren]. Third in the Constructors’ Championship and, when you look at the deficit from the second car, obviously it’s just been too broad, especially from that point in the year. That was something that we tried to understand and we were working very hard with Sergio to try and assist some of the issues he had. But it was very expensive in terms of points lost in the Constructors’ Championship.”

Red Bull had a certain sense of loyalty towards Sergio Perez

Trying to explain why the team took such a call, Christian Horner felt that Sergio Perez had made some impressive contributions to Red Bull in his stint with the team. As a result, there was a certain level of loyalty the team had towards him.

Horner said:

“Look at what Sergio has done for us over the last four years. We really wanted to try and help turn his year around. He finished second in the world championship in 2023 and he’s won five races in our car and played a key role in the Constructors’ Championships in 2022 and ’23."

He added:

“He played an important role in the ’21 Drivers’ Championship as well. So there was a loyalty to try and really help Checo. But you know, unfortunately, it didn’t materialize.”

While Sergio Perez is on the sidelines for the 2025 season, fans may see him coming back with a team on the grid in 2026.