What Sergio Perez said after trailing Max Verstappen at Spa as Red Bull axe looms

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez.

Sergio Perez has revealed his car was “quite different” to that of team-mate Max Verstappen in Belgian Grand Prix practice after a tough start to what could prove to be his last F1 race weekend as a Red Bull driver.

PlanetF1.com revealed on Thursday (see editor’s picks) that Perez is likely to be dropped by Red Bull during F1’s summer break if he fails to deliver in Belgium this weekend.

Sergio Perez behind Max Verstappen in Spa practice as Red Bull doubts grow

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

It is understood that a clause in Perez’s contract, signed as recently as last month, will allow Red Bull to discard the Mexican driver if he is in excess of 100 points behind Verstappen at the time of the August shutdown.

The gap currently stands at 141, with a maximum of 26 on offer for the winning driver of Sunday’s race at Spa.

PlanetF1.com understands that Perez is likely to be dropped by Red Bull entirely if the team choose not to continue with him into the second half of the F1 2024 season, with a demotion to junior team VCARB not considered a likely outcome.

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With Red Bull believed to be judging Perez’s performance relative to Verstappen, as opposed to his final result, at Spa, the 34-year-old suffered a challenging start to his potentially make-or-break weekend.

After lapping 0.957 seconds slower than Verstappen in FP1, the gap between the Red Bull drivers expanded to 1.027s in the second session as Perez ended the day ninth, six positions behind his team-mate.

With Verstappen serving a 10-place grid penalty this weekend for taking a new engine, the emphasis will be on Perez at Spa to prove that he can step up to lead Red Bull’s charge.

Speaking after the session, Perez revealed that he had been “playing around” with the setup of his RB20 on Friday with Red Bull gathering lots of data due to the “quite different” configuration of both cars.

He said: “We’ve been playing around.

“We’ve been doing some stuff with it and we just haven’t been able to fully extract everything out of it, so some some bits [to improve].

“I think we got plenty of information. Both cars were quite different, so I think we’ve got a lot to go through for tomorrow and obviously for the race, because although the Tarmac is quite different the degradation seems to be quite extreme.”

Wet conditions are expected to arrive at Spa on Saturday, with Perez spinning out of the last two rain-affected qualifying sessions in Britain and Hungary.

Perez admitted that an “interesting” weekend is in store as he aims to state his case to be retained for the rest of the F1 2024 season.

He added: “I think it’s going to be an interesting one.

“I think it’s going to be quite an interesting weekend. I think tomorrow qualifying can be potentially wet, so going into the weekend there are still a lot of unknowns coming up.”

PlanetF1.com understands that VCARB driver Daniel Ricciardo and Red Bull reserve Liam Lawson are both in contention to become Verstappen’s team-mate for the rest of the season if Perez is replaced. It is believed that there is no clear favourite between the pair as it stands.

Ricciardo previously raced for Red Bull between 2014-18, claiming all but one of his eight career victories with the Milton Keynes squad.

Lawson, meanwhile, has made just five F1 appearances to date having stood in for an injured Ricciardo in mid-2023, registering the VCARB (then AlphaTauri) team’s best result at that stage of the season by finishing ninth in Singapore.

Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko revealed earlier this year that a clause in Lawson’s contract will allow the New Zealander, who has attracted interest from Audi, to walk away from the energy drinks giant entirely if he is not promoted to a permanent seat – with either Red Bull Racing or VCARB – for F1 2025.

Red Bull’s option to promote Lawson is believed to expire in September.

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