Red Bull boss breaks his silence on the decision to let Sergio Perez go for 2025 F1 season
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner denied that Sergio Perez had been sacked from the team at the end of the 2024 season to make way for Liam Lawson. The Mexican driver was dropped by the Austrian team after the end of the season, despite them giving him a contract extension earlier in the year ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix.
The deal would have seen the six-time race winner drive for the Red Bull F1 until the end of the 2025 season at the very least with an opinion for a further one-year extension.
However, the Milton-Keynes outfit decided to terminate the contract early due to Perez's poor performances for the majority of the 2024 season which played a role in the former world champion's losing their hold over the Constructor's Championship to McLaren.
While appearing on TalkSport, the Red Bull boss clarified the team's decision to let go of Sergio Perez and revealed:
"Sergio's been with us for four years and you know the first three years he played a huge role in the team and certainly, in that first driver championship, you've only got to think back to Abu Dhabi '21.
"He's just had a really tough year this year and we sat down last week with obviously been talking about it a little bit beforehand and decided that it was right for both of us just to step back for him, to step out of the car take a bit of time with his family and work out what he wants to do." (6:00)
Red Bull team boss gives his take on snubbing Carlos Sainz to replace Sergio Perez
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner explained that they decided to offer Sergio Perez a new contract because he was second in the driver's championship and had claimed four podiums in the first five races. He also explained the decision to snub an available Carlos Sainz.
Speaking with Sky Sports, the Brit explained:
“I think Carlos is a great driver and we’ve seen that obviously this year at some times. You’ve got to look at all the various criteria and dynamics. At the point that we extended Checo’s contract you have to remember that he was second in the world championship and finishing on the podium in the first four out of five races.”
"So it was a logical extension just to remove speculation of which there was already too much around the team," he added.
Sergio Perez ended the 2024 World Championship in eighth position with 152 points to his name. The Mexican amassed four podium finishes and came second in three races, namely, the Bahrain GP, the Saudi Arabia GP and the Japan GP. However, he was unable to finish the last two races in Abu Dhabi and Doha.