Sergio Perez has insisted he has no doubts over his future in Formula 1 with Red Bull amid his current dip in performance.
Perez has largely been seen as an adept counterpart to three-time F1 champion Max Verstappen since joining Red Bull in 2021. He’s been fast enough to win the occasional race, but not quick enough to trouble the World Champion on a long-term basis, slotting into a ‘number two’ role.
That aura was maintained across the opening quartet of rounds in 2023 as Perez won twice, and claimed a Sprint Race victory, but his form has since collapsed. Verstappen, meanwhile, went on a run of 10 straight victories during which Perez managed the runner-up position on only three occasions and struggled for qualifying form.
But his season has plummeted further and he has scored just five points in the last three Grands Prix.
Perez followed up a low-key eighth in Singapore with a dismal race in Japan, in which he retired after colliding with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen, and was able to place only 10th in Qatar as he made little progress from a lowly grid spot.
Perez has a contract for 2024 and while Red Bull has history of swinging the axe the Mexican has affirmed that he has the full support of the team.
“100%,” Perez said on whether he was sure of his 2024 plans. “I have a contract and [have] conversations with the team as well. There is no reason for me not to fulfill that contract. I’m going to give my very best to it, I’ve done a commitment, but it will not be my final contract in Formula 1.”
Perez conceded that his side of the garage “were just lost” at the last two events after going the wrong way with set-up and has had extensive meetings in the 10 days since the race in Qatar to remedy the situation.
“Basically it was important for us to understand where it went so wrong,” he said. “And once you go into these fast weekends, for example with the sprint event in Qatar, if you don’t have a good set-up, you can easily get lost. And it’s what happened to us. We just got really lost in Qatar. But this is how this sport is: you have a good weekend, a bad weekend. We haven’t really been able to get consistency through the year, but there are still five races where things can change for us.”
Perez agreed that he “cannot have this sort of gap” to Verstappen and stressed that he has never contemplated quitting Formula 1 during the low moments.
“It’s not ideal when you go through a difficult period of your career,” he said. “But I just love the challenge of getting back at it. The easiest thing would be to just walk out of it. But that’s not me, that’s not who I am and I will not give up. I have zero doubts about being back to my best level and that is my only target that I have in mind. I don’t even think about retirement or anything like that because that’s just the easy route.”
