Last Updated on March 29 2025, 1:31 pm
Sergio Perez closed out his Formula One career with a disappointing DNF in Abu Dhabi. There was no big farewell organised at the Yas Marina Circuit as the Mexican continued to insist he would be driving for Red Bull this year.
Regardless whether it was Checo’s age or the tricky handling RB20 became a moot point, as the Mexican driver scored just 2 points over the final ten Grand Prix weekends. Something had to be done and it began with Perez’s dismissal from the Red Bull team.
There may have been other F1 teams interested in Sergio’s skill set, but by the time Red Bull completed their deliberations, all seats on the grid were filled for 2025. Perez has stayed largely silent this season other than to speak at a Mexican wheel and tyre company promotion where he said: “I have given myself six months to see what options I have to decide on the next step in my career. The doors are open in many places, so I want to give myself the time and space to make the best decision.”
Kravitz suggests a Mexican might be “laughing”
Whilst Perez claims there are multi options for 2026, the arrival in F1 of Cadillac next season guarantees two extra seats at motorsport’s top table. The US auto manufacturer branded 11th F1 team will recruit an F1 driver with experience and alongside possibly a young US born gun slinger, like Colton Herta.
Mario Andretti sits on the board of the Cadillac F1 Racing outfit and believes the recent plight of Liam Lawson is doing Checo’s chances of an F1 return a whole lot of good. Speaking to the ESPN racing podcast, the 1978 F1 world champion stated in his opinion Lawson was the wrong choice in the first place.
Yet as a direct replacement for Sergio Perez, the Kiwi driver has inadvertently justified his predecessor’s apparent lack of form and as Sky presenter Ted Kravitz said in Melbourne, “maybe there’s a certain Mexican laughing back home.”
The comparison was not lost on Mario Andretti who will advise Cadillac on their driver recruitment. “All I can say is that Liam Lawson is making Checo look very, very good,” he said. “Tsunoda, you know, I think he probably deserved that seat more than Liam. But who am I?”
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Mario says Lawson making Checo’s future brighter
Not being part of the Red Bull farcical recruitment process over the winter will stand Mario in good stead in his 2026 driver deliberations. Checo’s Red Bull career did yield five Grand Prix victories along with 29 podium finishes. Yes he failed to make it out of Q1 on six occasions last season together with failing to score points in a third of the GP weekends, but Perez remains within the top ten of F1 drivers for race starts.
This kind of F1 experience is exactly what Cadillac will be seeking and only Valtteri Bottas, with 35 starts less than Perez, would be the other stand out candidate for F1’s new team. Bottas has had greater success than the Mexican but he did drive for Mercedes during their uber dominant era, with most of his ten race wins coming when team mate Hamilton was compromised.
A Mexican F1 writer recently suggested that Checo was against Red Bull replacing him with Tsunoda as he feared the Japanese driver would be quickly dropped, leaving another Red Bull academy hopeful burned.
Further, there’s a theory doing the rounds which suggests Perez was less than communicative to his engineers in the closing rounds of last season, and this lack of feedback meant they were unsure how to develop the RB20 towards more suitable handling characteristics. This of course would have affected Lawson’s chances with the team, given Max has the extra-ordinary ability to drive around the problems of a poor handling car.
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Marko confirms he spoke with Perez
With Bottas and Perez as stand out favourites for the ‘experienced driver’ Cadillac seat, the silly season on the second driver is already in full flow. One report suggested the team were considering Florida born Logan Sargeant, even though his Argentinian replacement at Williams outshone the American’s efforts by far.
Perez’s incremental experience and large US and South American fan base will mean he brings a huge amount of sponsorship along with himself. This will be important for Cadillac as they begin to build a partner roster from scratch and so an easy win and big money from Perez goes a long way to making him the stand out candidate for the team.
When asked by formel1.de whether he’d spoken to Checo while the Red Bull saga with Lawson unfolded, Dr. Marko replied: “Yes, we talked about tequila.” Perez has taken an interest in a Mexican based tequila company, hence the reference and when asked if a bottle was on the way, Marko laughed: “Not yet, but he said it is coming in Mexico.”
Red Bull gave up on their young driver programme at the end of 2020 and recruited the recently out of contract Sergio Perez. Marko was if he regretted signing Checo as rumours persisted at the time that Nico Hulkenberg was also in the frame.
No regrets from Marko in signing Perez
“Back then, Sergio Perez won his first Grand Prix. It was exactly during that period that the decisions were made. The majority chose Perez then,” Marko explained, referring Checo’s win for Racing Point at the 2020 Sakhir GP.
It won’t just be Cadillac where Sergio finds interest given Sauber/Audi and Haas F1 do not have both their drivers locked in for a number of years. Yet as was the case with Carlos Sainz, the Alpine and Audi projects look somewhat behind schedule at present, and so the Spaniard decided the best bet was the improving independent Williams F1 team.
Lawson;’s struggles have explained the dramatic fall off with Sergio Perez’s performance last season and it will add confidence to any team considering employing the Mexican driver that 2024 was not al his fault.
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Lawson ‘paid the price for his arrogance’
Even as his Red Bull Formula One dream was crumbling around him, Liam Lawson was defiant to the last. After the Kiwi crashed out of qualifying in China, Tsunoda was asked if he would be ready to step up to the Red Bull team come Japan. “Yeah, 100 per cent. I mean, the car is faster,” said the Japanese driver.
When told of his ex-team mates comments, Lawson spat back: “I’ve raced him for years, raced him in junior categories and beat him — and I did in F1 as well, so he can say whatever he wants,” Lawson said in not the most media savvy response to being baited.
The New Zealand born driver opened a can of worms with his claims given his record over Tsunoda is less than convincing. The pair have been racing on and off since 2019 where that season Lawson beat Tsunoda in the Euro Formula Open championship finishing in second, two places ahead of his Japanese rival… READ MORE
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Checo is definitely in the most advantageous position for a Cadillac drive thanks to Carlos Slim & the Mexican market, so even though Bottas has a better statistical record in F1 & only two fewer seasons of racing experience in F1, he brings nothing on the table market-wise.
All things considered, I’m fully positive Checo will eventually indeed become a Cadillac driver with his teammate being either American (depending on those drivers’ super license situations), Bottas, or Zhou.
However, just like with Bottas & Zhou, Cadillac is literally his only option because most teams are set with their current drivers for the medium term, meaning that only some more drastic scenarios would see driver changes occur in these teams.
Audi & Haas aren’t any different in this regard, so claiming otherwise is contradictory because their drivers are actually on multi-year deals & they were hired with a clear longer-term intention, so they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon without anything drastic happening, just like the current McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari, & Williams drivers.
Likewise, with Alpine, Gasly isn’t going anywhere & ever since Colapinto’s hiring, no one else has had a chance anymore due to his hiring circumstances, so only he’d replace Doohan as a full-time driver if anyone.
Alonso has indicated that he’ll probably quit racing in F1 again & for good after the 2026 season.
However, their priority order for his successor is/would be Max, followed by Tsunoda via their future Honda PU supply.
Back to Audi & Haas more specifically, Hulkenberg was hired with both a clear experience & nationality intention, so he’s definitely in the project for the foreseeable future & I have zero doubts about Bortoleto’s ability to prove he’s worthy of a long career in F1, so he definitely won’t get sacked after only a single season unless he gave strong justification for that by his performance level.
Likewise with Haas, Bearman is unlikely to give a justification for sacking & since neither current Ferrari driver is going anywhere anytime soon, he’s unlikely to even receive a Ferrari opportunity anytime soon & therefore be stuck at Haas for some time, while Ocon was clearly hired as a driver with decent F1 racing experience alongside, so he definitely won’t get easily sacked, meaning that especially with him something drastic would need to happen for his time at Haas to end after only a single season.
Finally, the claim about Sargeant couldn’t be more false because Cadillac hasn’t even talked with him at any point, which Graeme Lowdon made clear earlier this month, not to mention he stopped active racing earlier this year, & given how badly he flopped in the end, he was never going to receive another opportunity in F1 by any organization anymore.