Christian Horner has revealed that Red Bull activated a clause in Sergio Perez’s contract to axe the Mexican driver.
Perez’s four years as Max Verstappen’s teammate came to an end on December 18 after weeks of speculation, following a dismal campaign for the 34-year-old, that saw him finish almost 300 points behind his title winning teammate. Perez’s poor performances, especially when compared with Verstappen, saw the team miss out on millions in prize money in F1’s constructors world championship for finishing behind McLaren and Ferrari – and Perez paid the price, losing his drive just six months after inking an extended deal.
Perez’s seat will now be taken by RB’s Liam Lawson, who impressed after replacing Daniel Ricciardo midway through the season. And speaking on TalkSport, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner revealed that a clause in Perez’s contract had been activated to end his deal early. Horner said: “Sergio has been with us for four years, and in the first three years he played a huge role in the team. You only have to think back to Abu Dhabi 2021 and the role he played for the team on that day.
“We were constructors champions in 2022 and 2023 and he was runner-up in the drivers’ championship. He’s just had a really tough year this year and we sat down last week, we’d been talking about it beforehand, but we decided it would be right to step back and for him to step out of the car and spend a bit of time with his family and work out what he wants to do.
“He’s still going to be involved with the team, he’ll be doing a couple of show runs for us this year. It was right for him because it wasn’t enjoyable for him getting all this scrutiny and pressure and expectation every weekend.
“He had signed a new contract, but in those contracts there are obligations between the team and the driver. We sat down and talked it through and we’ve always had a great relationship with Sergio. By his own admission he was 280 points behind his teammate this year. We lost the constructors’ championship by just over 70 points.
“He knew, by his own high standards, that he wasn’t achieving what he wanted or what we needed as a team. We just had a grown up discussion about it. He’s a great guy. Maybe he’ll want to come back to the sport, even maybe next year.”
Horner also explained more behind the decision to promote Lawson, who has just 11 GP starts to his name, to the eight time title winners – stressing that it was important to find a driver who knew that world champion Verstappen would remain the team’s number one.
He added: “Liam is there to provide strength-in-depth for what we need on an engineering and tactical perspective. We’re perhaps slightly different to other teams and it’s about communication and being up front with drivers. Max Verstappen is the most valuable asset in Formula 1. He’s our lead driver. If you can get close to him, fantastic. But the reality is that we expect Max to win.
“Ferrari next year will have two drivers who will take points off each other. Which one do you back? That sometimes becomes divisive in the team.”