Sergio Perez's poor form continued as he finished seventh in the Belgian Grand Prix having started from second on the grid; Red Bull boss Christian Horner confirmed the driver's future would be on the agenda at a team meeting on Monday
Monday 29 July 2024 15:41, UK
Christian Horner has confirmed Red Bull will hold talks over Sergio Perez's future on Monday after the team's motorsport advisor Helmut Marko said the Mexican driver "completely collapsed" in Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix.
Perez came into the final race before Formula 1's summer break under heavy pressure to deliver a strong result having scored just 21 points across the previous seven rounds.
An improved qualifying display earned him second on the grid, but Perez fell backwards in the race to finish eighth (later promoted to seventh due to George Russell's disqualification), three places behind his team-mate Max Verstappen, who had started 11th after serving a grid penalty.
Marko told Sky Germany: "Sergio had the opportunity to take a good result from second place. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Especially in the last stint, he completely collapsed.
"What looked so positive in qualifying unfortunately didn't materialise in the race."
Both Horner and Marko confirmed that Red Bull will hold a meeting on Monday, before the team shuts down for F1's summer break later in the week, during which Perez's future will be on the agenda.
"Things are always constantly analysed," Horner said. "We have a meeting on Monday but it's not just about Checo. There are other topics on the agenda as well, which we always do before the summer break."
There has been speculation over recent weeks that Perez could be replaced by either Red Bull reserve driver Liam Lawson, or one of the drivers at their junior squad RB, Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda.
Dropping Perez mid-season would be embarrassing for Red Bull having singed him to a two-year contract extension less than two months earlier, but his poor form has enabled McLaren to close the gap at the top of the Constructors' Championship to just 42 points.
Referring to Monday's meeting, 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.
"But of course every result is [important] for Sergio, and eighth place from second on the grid is certainly not what we expected."
Horner has offered public support for Perez throughout his poor run of form and said that it has "hurt" him personally to witness his driver's struggles.
"No one wants to see Checo struggling, everyone wants to see him succeed," he said. "The team have been, and is, right behind him. It hurts seeing him in the situation he is.
"Checo's had a tough run over the last few races. What's so confusing for us is the season started so well for him. He did a super job in qualifying.
"We need to go through and understand the issues in the race and we have got time to do that."
Horner implied that Perez could be given more time to turn his campaign around, but Red Bull have a reputation for making ruthless decisions over their driver line-ups.
"Nobody wants to make that decision," he added. "You guys talk about it every day. In the team, we want to get him going and understand.
"He's as acutely aware as anybody we need both cars performing, which is what we had at the beginning of the year and that's what we need to get back to."
Perez's hopes of a strong race were dented at the start as he lost a place to Lewis Hamilton, but he steadied himself to deliver a strong first stint before fading on his second set of tyres.
"We lost a position to Lewis but the first stint was going well," he told Sky Sports F1. "I was holding back Piastri, we were running third. But then going onto the medium, pitting into traffic, we lost the position to Piastri. We were really slow in a straight line, something that we need to understand.
"We were just too aggressive on that tyre on that second stint, ended up doing only 10 laps and that compromised the whole race because I ended up doing a massively long stint on the hard, and generally speaking we were just weak on tyres."
Perez has expressed confidence that he won't be replaced before the end of the season, and appeared to remain assured that would be the case as he stated his desires for the summer break.
He said: "To really focus, together with the team, to understand what we've been doing with the car the last couple of events.
"Where we ended up today, I think it's a really good race to understand what we've been doing with the tyres. And go from there.
"I think that's the main thing and that's we have to do as a team."
Formula 1 returns after the summer break with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort on August 23-25, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream every F1 race and more with a NOW Sports Month Membership - No contract, cancel anytime
