Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko has slammed Sergio Perez after he “completely collapsed” through the Belgian Formula 1 Grand Prix.
Red Bull plans to carry talks on Monday about its driver line-up for the 2025 season, with Perez liable to losing his place on the world champion team.
The 34-year-old was in terrible form, dropping from second on the grid at Spa-Francorchamps to eighth (he moved as much as seventh following George Russell's disqualification), and was easily beaten by his Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen, despite the Dutchman receiving a 10-place grid penalty for an engine change, which meant he began eleventh.
Marko told Sky Germany: “Sergio had the possibility to get a very good result from second place. Unfortunately, it didn't occur. Especially within the last section, he completely fell apart, where he achieved lap times of 1m48s.
“What looked so positive in qualifying unfortunately did not materialize in the race.”
Asked about Monday’s meeting to evaluate the motive force line-ups for Red Bull and sister team RB, Marko added: “For us, the situation is such that we can even discuss the general situation for 2025. We have a lot of drivers and an idea.
“But of course every result is [important] for Sergio and eighth place from second on the grid is certainly not what we expected.”
Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB20
Photo: Erik Junius
Perez has not recorded a win for the reason that April 2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, and Red Bull offered him a two-year contract extension firstly of the season in a bid to enhance his performances.
Red Bull believed that this might relieve Perez and permit him to realize his goals, however the expected results didn’t come.
That means Daniel Ricciardo, Liam Lawson or Yuki Tsunoda could replace him if Red Bull want to vary their driver line-up, even though it stays to be seen whether that can occur mid-season as Formula 1 teams head into the summer break.
Meanwhile, Perez blamed an absence of power on the straights, traffic, tyres, strategy and even the automotive’s balance for his poor performance, and pitted towards the tip to record a morale-boosting fastest lap of the race on a brand new set of sentimental tyres.
However, he expressed confidence that he would proceed to drive for Red Bull on the Dutch Grand Prix after the summer break and said he wouldn’t answer any further questions on his future.
“It was a very disappointing race,” said Perez. “It began well, I just struggled quite a bit on the straights. I don’t know what happened, but I had to avoid wasting the battery in the beginning of the primary few laps and I used to be just very weak on the straights, and once I managed to pass her, charge the group a bit, I stayed there.
Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB20
Photo: Sam Bagnall / Motorsports images
“But then the second stage, jumping onto the medium tyre with all of the traffic behind me, just made it really, really difficult. Very tricky.
“We also had quite a brief run, so we were just not in sync. I believe we just didn’t address the tyres today. The balance wasn’t good either, so there have been a variety of things to analyse on our side.
“I had a very good qualifying on Saturday, a very good day. It doesn't change anything. I believe there's an excessive amount of happening within the team and we’ve got a variety of things to deal with and we will't waste energy on all this speculation.
“This is the last time I'm going to talk about the future, so just to make it clear to everyone, I'm not going to talk anymore. I'm not going to answer any more questions about the future.”
Additional information: Markus Luettgens and Filip Cleeren
