Pérez opens up about Red Bull’s driving challenge: “Suddenly you realise how difficult the car is” – Sergio Pérez has opened up in a candid new interview, shedding light on the ongoing struggles some drivers face behind the wheel of a Red Bull Formula 1 car. The Mexican, who spent four seasons with the championship-winning team, reflected on both his personal experiences and those of his predecessors, using the opportunity to offer a subtle but pointed commentary on the current situation at Red Bull Racing.

While not outwardly critical, Pérez’s comments strongly imply that the car’s inherent difficulty to drive has been a significant factor in the team’s revolving door of second drivers – and now a stumbling block for newcomers attempting to match the pace of Max Verstappen. In his comments, Pérez underlines a reality that he believes is often overlooked: the RB-series chassis may be one of the most competitive on the grid, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to handle.

 

Highlighting a known problem within the team

Pérez’s words come at a crucial time for Red Bull. Just two races into the 2025 Formula 1 season, Liam Lawson – drafted in as a short-term replacement following an internal reshuffle – has already been moved back to the junior Racing Bulls squad with team leadership citing serious difficulties adapting to the car.

Speaking to the official Formula 1 media, Pérez explained: “Especially last year, I wasn’t able to show what I’m capable of as a driver. Now you suddenly realize how difficult the car is to drive”.

It’s a statement that echoes his long-held frustrations, particularly during the 2023 and 2024 seasons when he consistently trailed Verstappen by several tenths per lap and struggled with car set-up and consistency.

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Struggles across generations of Red Bull drivers

Pérez has also highlighted the fact that he’s far from the only driver to have experienced such difficulties. Before him, both Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon failed to settle into the second Red Bull seat, despite having strong credentials and, as was later shown, considerable talent at other teams.

“When I came to Red Bull, great drivers were already struggling with it,” said Pérez. “Alex, Pierre – they are fantastic drivers and they were struggling.”

The data backs up Pérez’s claim. Over the course of several seasons, Red Bull’s second drivers have lagged well behind Verstappen. In Pérez’s case, the average qualifying gap was around six-tenths of a second. For Lawson, who competed in just two Grand Prix weekends in 2025, the gap to Verstappen in qualifying was closer to a full second, with race pace deficits sometimes even greater.

This pattern has persisted despite the team’s engineering prowess and continued dominance at the top of the Constructors’ Championship. The assumption that Verstappen’s overwhelming performance is simply a matter of driver superiority has often overshadowed the reality that few can extract the same level of performance from a car that appears to be optimized around his unique driving style.

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Public misconceptions and internal complexity

According to Pérez, the public and media have largely underestimated the level of complexity required to drive the Red Bull car at the limit. “I was at Red Bull for so long that everyone forgot how difficult the car is to drive, so it wasn’t easy,” he emphasized.

It’s ironic that Red Bull’s reputation as a team capable of producing dominant, well-balanced cars has, in Pérez’s view, obscured the nuances that make those cars so difficult to tame. With such a razor-sharp development path, often closely guided by Verstappen’s feedback, it’s no surprise that other drivers have struggled to adapt.

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Changes on the horizon: Tsunoda’s promotion and Red Bull’s recalibration

With Lawson now back with Racing Bulls, Yuki Tsunoda has joined Verstappen in the senior Red Bull team from the Japanese Grand Prix starting today. Although no longer directly involved in the day-to-day running of the team, Pérez has expressed his support for both Tsunoda and his former colleagues.

“I really want the team to be successful because I have a lot of friends there,” he said. “I was there for four years and I wish them all the best. It’s just a very difficult situation to talk about.”

Pérez admitted that he no longer has a deep insight into the inner workings of Red Bull, but his connections remain.

“At the moment I’m on the outside. I’m in contact with some of the team members, but when you’re not inside it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on.”

Still, his endorsement of Tsunoda feels sincere, even as he acknowledges the daunting task ahead of the young Japanese driver.

“Woody, a good friend of mine, is Yuki’s engineer now, so I really hope they succeed. Yuki has the talent, the speed and, more importantly, the mental strength to do it. I hope they succeed.”

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Newey’s warning: The car’s inherent challenge

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Pérez’s comments is his reference to Adrian Newey, the legendary aerodynamicist and former Red Bull design chief. According to Pérez, even Newey himself acknowledged the car’s unique difficulty to master.

“For me it was very simple: it’s just very difficult to get 100 per cent out of the car and develop the necessary confidence – even Adrian talked about it,” noted Pérez.

That admission carries weight. Newey, considered one of the greatest minds in F1 design history, rarely discusses driver adaptability in public forums. If even he recognized the tightrope walk required to extract peak performance from the Red Bull car, then Pérez’s statements begin to take on a new level of credibility.

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What next for Red Bull’s second seat?

The challenge Red Bull now faces is not just finding a competent driver to partner Verstappen – it’s developing a car that allows that driver to flourish. With Pérez gone and Lawson shelved, the team is clearly still searching for the right formula.

Tsunoda’s promotion may provide stability in the short term, but whether he can succeed where others have failed remains to be seen. Pérez’s comments, made with the benefit of distance and reflection, serve as a quiet warning: unless Red Bull evolves how it approaches its second seat – both in car design and internal dynamics – the cycle of struggle may continue.

For Pérez, now embarking on the next phase of his career, there’s no bitterness in his voice – just a sincere desire to see his old team succeed, and for history to finally acknowledge the truth that many have long suspected, but few within Red Bull have openly admitted.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” concluded Pérez, “the car is just really, really hard to drive. It takes more than just talent – it takes time, confidence and the right environment. I hope Yuki gets that…”

As Red Bull prepares for a crucial part of the 2025 season, one thing is clear: the second seat remains one of the toughest jobs in Formula One. And having experienced its ups and downs, Sergio Pérez may be one of the few who truly understands just how hard it is.

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MORE F1 NEWS – RB21 design: the “opposite” of Newey’s recommendation

For the first time since Adrian Newey joined Red Bull the year of its inception, the Milton Keynes based Formula One team have designed a car without input from the guru engineer. Having announced he was leaving Red Bull and taking a sabbatical, within weeks the call of team ownership and a huge dollop of cash and Newey was signed to Aston Martin.

Adrian had not been the technical director of Red Bull Racing since resigning the position back in 2018, when Frenchman Pierre Wache was placed in charge of the day to day technical operations of the team. Newey worked part time and gave input into design issues, as and when, which led to Christian Horner to emphasise on more than one occasion during their dominant 2023 campaign, that Newey was not purely responsible for creating and developing thre Red Bull F1 cars.

“Adrian is a big part of the team and our achieved performance. But of course his role has evolved over the years and the technical team under him, led by Pierre Wache, is doing a great job. They are not dependent on Adrian,” said Red Bull boss Christian Horner to AMuS in 2023. “Adrian has the ability to come in, go out and work on other projects. I think that’s part of the evolution of any team.”… READ MORE ON THIS STORY