Just when it looked as though things couldn’t get any worse for Sergio Perez, the weekend of his home Grand Prix in Mexico was as bad as it could get for Checo. This even despite the Red Bull driver challenging for the lead of this race last year, then putting his car into the wall at turn one.

In 2023 it was a sudden shock moment then it was all over for Sergio, but this year at the Autodromo Romanos Rodgriguez it was death by a thousand cuts for the Mexican driver.

In there practice sessions Perez was not at the races finishing tenth in practice one, ninth next time out and fourteenth in the all important final session before qualifying on Saturday afternoon. There Sergio crashed out of the first qualifying session with only the pointless drivers from Kick Sauber behind him on the grid meanwhile his team mate claimed the second spot on the front row.

 

 

 

It started with the start

The Mexican fans blamed Red Bull Racing for Sergio’s drastic underperformance, such that Christian Horner was forced to defend Checo’s race engineer who became the target of their ire on social media.

Perez had admitted in the FIA press conference he was having a “terrible” season yet despite this admission Checo defiantly repeated on more than one occasion that he would be in the Red Bull car come nest seasons pre-testing in Bahrain.

Sergio’s dad then entered the fray, quoted in the local media as saying his son would definitely be the F1 champion driver one day yet Dr. Helmut Marko scoffed at this notion stating, “We have to see what exactly was going on, but unfortunately, the recovery that we all expected did not happen. All due respect to his father’s optimism.”

The race itself was no better for Checo than the previous track sessions in Mexico City, as he rolled onto the back of the grid to complete the formation it was obvious Perez had completely overshot his pit box and not by a few millimetres. Sergio made a great start making up five places over the first lap, but the call quickly came from his engineer he had been penalised for improper start procedures.

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Perez complains of brake issues

Checo refused to believe he had made anything other than a “good” start and even when he was informed of the five second penalty for not placing his RB20 inside his allocated grid box, Perez questioned the decision: “Have a look, because I don’t think we were,” Perez queried over team radio.

Not as if they could get any worse, but things appeared to improve for Sergio who had been com plaining all weekend about his braking issues. “Every time I tried to brake and attacked the braking, I put too much energy into the tyres and that makes it very tricky for me to stop the car,” Perez reported in the media pen.

“I’m having to modulate my braking quite a lot and that’s something we can see in the data but we are not able to fix it at the moment,” Checo revealed. Yet a number of F1 observers commented on the fact that rather than an actual mechanical problem with Sergio’s RB20 it was his crisis of confidence in the car which was at the root of the problem.

In the Grand Prix, Perez had made excellent ground by lap 18 such that his five second penalty was already wiped out by the progress of the Mexican driver. Then he happened upon one of his stablemates, Liam Lawson, who was driving the V-CARB left vacant by Daniel Ricciardo.

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Lawson criticised by Marko

Perez made a move down the inside at Turn 4 only for Lawson to close the door with their tussle continuing into the next corner where there was contact as Lawson ran Perez off track. As a result Checo’s car suffered significant damage forcing him to limp home P17 and last.

The irony of it being Lawson who took out Perez was not lost on those watching given the young New Zealand drier is auditioning for Sergio’s seat for 2025. That said Lawson drew the irritation of his mentor Dr. Helmut Marko who was curt when speaking to ESPN. “We are brother teams and Lawson should not drive as hard as he did – He [Lawson] reacted too strongly.”

Red Bull have a significant Mexican corporate backing estimated to be in the region of $30m but with the Grand Prix now behind us paddock voices calling for Checo to be replaced grow louder by the day.

Ralf Schumacher, a stalwart of Germany’s Sky F1 TV coverage believes Red Bull will act quickly, even potentially before this weekend in Sao Paulo. “I don’t even think he’ll finish the season. Red Bull will make a decision after this weekend,” claimed the German pundit.

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‘No point in this anymore’

“There’s no point in any of this any more, not for either side. Not even for Perez. The poor man is under so much pressure, he’s not going home beaming with joy.”

Schumacher outlines the ‘financial disaster’ Perez has brought upon the team as he has the least points of the top eight drivers in contention for race wins. Red Bull have almost certainly forfeited their seventh constructors’ championship, which would place them one behind arch rivals Mercedes.

“If you want to change something now against Ferrari, then you have to change something quickly,” Ralf concludes.

Even the more conservative F1 writer for the BBC, Andrew Benson is calling time of Sergio’s Red Bull adventure. Speaking on the broadcasters chequered flag podcast Benson was explicit with his opinion. “I think Red Bull have to do something really, don’t they? I don’t think this can carry on like this.”

Unlike Schumacher, Benson believes Sergio will make it to the end of the season, although it’s not beyond the realm of the impossible that Red Bull will hook their number two driver after this weekend’s Grand Prix in Brazil.

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Hamilton laughs at Verstappen misfortune

This era of Formula One will become known for the current FIA’s presidents mission to crack down on track limits violations. “My leadership team inherited a number of challenges when we took office at the end of 2021,” Ben Sulayem admitted to Autosport.

“It has been well documented that one of those was Race Control management. We have made changes to the Race Control operation and we have devised the High Performance Programme to ensure that we have a pathway of talent coming through for the years ahead.”

Despite big spending on the new state of the art Geneva based race control centre the FIA officials faced their worst nightmares last year at both the Austrian and Qatar Grand Prix. In Austria some 1200 track limits violations were recorded with the stewards only able to issue final race classification in the early hours of Monday morning… READ MORE