Sergio Perez has claimed that Red Bull failed to offer him sufficient protection during his difficult 2024 Formula 1 campaign, which ultimately led to his exit from the team.
The Mexican was fired by the Milton Keynes-based squad upon the conclusion of last season, after a difficult year which saw him finish a lowly eighth in the Drivers’ Championship, as team-mate Max Verstappen took his fourth straight championship.
Since then, the veteran has kept out of the media spotlight, amid speculation that he is under consideration to take one of the two drives for Cadillac in its debut next season.
In his absence, Red Bull has seen two different team-mates for Verstappen, with Liam Lawson lasting just two races, followed by Yuki Tsunoda, who has been struggling to contend with the tricky RB21 challenger.
Speaking on the Dede del Paddock podcast, Perez has alleged that a “reliable source” informed him that Red Bull has regretted the decision to remove him.
On the same podcast, Perez doubled down on the statement that Red Bull opted to remove him through a situation of its own making, and added that speculation was allowed to continue after signing a contract extension early in the season.
“In the end, that’s how the sport is. Decisions were made because there was too much pressure that they themselves ended up creating,” he said.
“I had a signed contract in Monaco, but from the next race onwards, everyone was talking about my future even though I already had a signed contract.”
Failure to ‘protect’ Perez contributed to eventual sacking
Perez continued that once the extension was signed, there was an opportunity to nip any further speculation in the bud.
But, with the rumour mill continuing to turn as results still proved to be hard for Perez to score, the decision eventually came to oust him in favour of Lawson once the season came to an end.
“It would have been easy for the team to protect me and say, ‘You know what? We have a driver signed for the next two years’,” he said.
“But that wasn’t the case. From then on, no one talked about anything other than Red Bull race after race.
“In the end, there was a lot of pressure on my side of the garage…it was putting a lot of pressure on the engineers, on everyone involved, and I think in the end that ended up costing us a lot.”
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