Uncertainty over Sergio Perez’s future still remains with killer Red Bull question answered – for now

Sergio Perez has yet to beat Max Verstappen in a race in 2024

Sergio Perez remains a Red Bull driver because the team doesn’t believe someone else from their pool will “definitely” do a better job, says Bernie Collins.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner put to rest speculation about Perez’s future when after a crunch meeting on Monday he told the team that Perez “remains” a Red Bull driver.

Bernie Collins ponders ‘key point’ behind Red Bull’s driver decision

“Checo remains a Red Bull Racing driver, despite all the speculation of late,” Horner said. “We’re looking forward to seeing him perform at circuits where he’s done well before, after the summer break.”

The decision came despite Perez’s ongoing struggles with the driver scoring only 46 points in the nine races since his last podium in China.

In the last race before the decision, the Belgian GP, he dropped from second on the grid to seventh at the chequered flag, three places behind Max Verstappen even though he lined up nine ahead of his team-mate.

It has Collins speculating as to why Red Bull made the call with the former Aston Martin strategist saying she thinks the team didn’t believe “definitely” that the likes of Daniel Ricciardo or Liam Lawson could be a better job.

“I’m surprised if that was the decision they were going come to it didn’t even happen earlier, if they were going to get there,” Collins said in the Sky Sports podcast.

“He obviously had a very, very strong qualifying in Spa, but it was right on a knife edge, he nearly went out at the end of Q2. So it was close to being either P15 or the P2 he ended up so it was real close. That wasn’t all done to Checo.

“So I think it’s in many ways, they had to look at their championship and say, ‘Who could we put in that seat that is guaranteed to do a better job for the remaining 10 races?’

“And I don’t think given everything that’s gone on, you know a few races ago we were talking about was Ricciardo safe in that seat and we’ve gone through this cycle of all of it.

“So I don’t think they can look at the two and the junior team at the moment and say, ‘definitely they are going to do a better job’.

“And that, I think, is what’s been the key point of this decision.

“And, you know, there’s still some in-fighting happening within the Red Bull team and it’s all just pawns in a chess match.”

More on Red Bull’s shock driver decision

Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo stay: Conclusions from shock Red Bull decision

New Red Bull driver development as Helmut Marko teases ‘reshuffled cards’

Not an ‘absolute given’ Sergio Perez will see out the season

But just because Perez will be in the car at the first race after the summer break, the Dutch Grand Prix, that doesn’t mean he’ll still be in come the season-ending race in Abu Dhabi.

That’s the opinion of Craig Slater, who said: “The one aspect I take issue with there is that he stays for the remainder of the season.

“As I was dealing with that news, I said he would be back again after the summer break. But yeah, I don’t think it’s an absolute given that he does complete the season.

“I think Christian Horner would like him to. I know you’ve worked closely with Checo, Bernie, and I’m a big fan of his and I think he’s great and I want him to finish the season strongly as well.

“But I don’t necessarily think it’s out of the question that they might, if things don’t pick up in these next races after the resumption, that the talk will swirl around again if the title is in the balance.

“It would have been a Helmut Marko decision this, it was a Christian Horner decision and that might be significant. I think Marko is more of a tinkerer man, he likes to move people around quite ruthlessly. But do we really gain so much?

“Daniel has not been really banging on the door hard, they don’t for whatever reason want to promote Yuki Tsunoda, and Liam Lawson is a bit of an unknown quantity so not straightforward what to do.

“But yeah, it’s such a shame. We have to remember a lot of good drivers have really struggled to deal with… is it the style of car that Max prefers and that’s where the development path is gone? So he’s not really exceptional in that sense, Checo. He’s got about 35% of the points that Max has.

“It’s right to say if that persists with the scoring we’ve had they won’t win the Constructors’ Championship. And senior figures in Red Bull have been saying to Christian Horner, ‘look at this, can’t ignore the facts, it’s your decision ultimately, you know that you have got to take responsibility for this one way or another’. And so far he’s keeping Checo in situ.”

Read next: Audi F1 in ‘turmoil’ after Carlos Sainz’s brutal ‘vote of no confidence’