Red Bull's decision to keep Perez is "all about performance" insists Horner

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner defended his decision to keep Sergio Perez in their driver line-up after his run of poor results in recent races.

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Horner admitted Zandvoort, scene of this weekend’s race, tends to be one of Perez’s poorer venues, but said he expects better things from him in subsequent rounds.

Following the British Grand Prix, Horner described Perez’s failure to score points as “unsustainable”. After Perez scored seventh-place finishes in the following two rounds, Horner confirmed to Red Bull staff the 34-year-old racer will remain at the team.

Speaking at Zandvoort today Horner said Red Bull remain confident Perez can recapture the form he showed at the beginning of the year. “We know what Checo is capable of,” he told Sky. “We know that at the beginning of the year he was scoring well, four podiums in five races.

“I think he’s just had a lack of confidence and has ended up in a bit of a spiral. He’s had a bit of a reset, hopefully, over the summer break.

“We know that there’s tracks that he’s won at coming up. We’ve got Azerbaijan where he’s won both sprint race and grand prix on the same weekend. He’s won a fantastic race in Singapore against Charles Leclerc in mixed conditions. He’s been very quick at Monza.

“Zandvoort hasn’t been his best circuit, so of the four races coming up before the next mini-break, I would say this is his most challenging one.”

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Horner denied the team had deliberately avoided taking the unpopular decision to drop Perez before his home race in Mexico later this year. “Absolutely not,” he said, “it’s all about performance.”

Red Bull uniquely runs two Formula 1 teams and could have promoted Yuki Tsunoda or Daniel Ricciardo from its junior squad RB. It also has RB reserve driver Liam Lawson available, but Horner said the team’s analysis of their performance supports the decision to keep Perez.

“We’ve got the best two drivers, we believe, in this car,” he said. “We have all the data from all of the drivers. So we have that information, if we felt that there was something better, we would have changed it by now.

“We believe what we have is capable of defending the championship. It finished first and second in last year’s championship, finished first and third in the year before, and obviously won [the drivers’ championship for Max Verstappen in ’21 as well.

“You’re very quick to condemn Sergio. We’re trying our hardest to give him the chance to rediscover that form. And he has to cope with all the pressure, the media, all the social media that piles in on the back of that. I think he’s done… he is a driver that’s capable of bouncing back, and we’re giving him our full support and want to see him respond.”

Horner denied recent comments by the team’s motorsport consultant Helmut Marko claiming Lawson will be promoted to one of Red Bull’s teams for 2025. Kliene Zeitung quoted Marko saying Lawson “will certainly be in one of our cars next year.”

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“He said he’ll have a drive in Formula 1 next year,” said Horner. “We could rent him out.

“Nothing is fixed. If we don’t take up the option on them, then he’s a free driver for 2025. So we’ve got specific time periods within drivers’ contracts where that becomes prevalent. I checked with Helmut on his comment earlier and he said, no, I didn’t say which car, he did say a drive.”

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17 comments on “Red Bull’s decision to keep Perez is “all about performance” insists Horner”

Vikrant Singla
23rd August 2024, 17:38

Hahaha

Jere (@jerejj)
23rd August 2024, 18:40

Even if Marko were mistranslated, renting out is a non-option anyway, as independent teams, especially manufacturer-owned ones, don’t exist to serve others, so only if they don’t use the option on him, he’d leave & as a free agent in that scenario.

Kribana (@krichelle)
23rd August 2024, 18:48

You’re very quick to condemn Sergio. We’re trying our hardest to give him the chance to rediscover that form. And he has to cope with all the pressure, the media, all the social media that piles in on the back of that. I think he’s done… he is a driver that’s capable of bouncing back, and we’re giving him our full support and want to see him respond.”

LMAO I don’t see much effort being given to Perez. I see more effort being given to keep Verstappen. Ah wait, teams already believe that Verstappen is Red Bull while Perez is from another team.

BasCB (@bascb)
24th August 2024, 18:16

Yeah, and the condemning has more often started INSIDE the Red Bull camp than from journalists too.

Jim from US (@jimfromus)
23rd August 2024, 18:56

Performance related, financial performance, and not race performance.

chimaera2003 (@chimaera2003)
23rd August 2024, 22:46

Just imagine that I’ve put the fire emoji here!🔥

Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
23rd August 2024, 19:28

In the same interview he also said that the reason they’d been out scored by Mercedes and McLaren in the last 5-6 races was because they don’t have two cars up there, which was surprisingly directly when that particular question wasn’t about Perez, it was about the performance of the car in general.

Edvaldo
23rd August 2024, 20:14

The amount of excuses this guy had to make for Perez over the past 3 seasons is astounding.

I wonder if he gets any special Christmas gifts from the Mexican sponsors.

anon
23rd August 2024, 22:17

Edvaldo, Marko has also been defending Perez quite firmly in the press and arguing for his position within the team – it’s just that he’s tended to speak to the German press, which means the comments have been less widely seen. He’d been arguing that Perez’s decline in performance is because of problems with the RB20’s handling balance, and that the team expect Perez to return to better form as they modify some of the upgrades to make the performance of the car more predictable.

Horner might be criticised for the decision, but given that Marko has also been defending Perez’s performances and arguing for him to stay at the team, perhaps some of the criticism should also be directed his way.

Mayrton
23rd August 2024, 21:22

Excuses, excuses. Totally ridiculous and a slap in the face of new talent. I know RedBull couldn’t care less about the WCC but he has been unacceptable for over 3 seasons at least. From 2026 onwards this team will become a back marker team. They will lose everything, including Max. They will not even be a shadow of their former selves.

MichaelN
24th August 2024, 10:36

Horner has also mismanaged the season badly. To go from dominant to where they are now is one of the worst in season developments in years. Probably since Ferrari in 2018.
1. Esploratore (@esploratore1)
  24th August 2024, 11:41
  
  Ferrari 2018 was ok, they just had a wrong upgrade and recovered when they changed back, it was the most competitive ferrari we’ve seen in the last decade or longer; the 2017 and 2022 ferrari were worse, they couldn’t keep up with merc\red bull’s development.