Sergio Perez’s Red Bull seat is under threat amid poor form and results this season, and the team will not be short of options if they decide to replace him.
Sergio Pérez was warned that Red Bull had “three drivers” waiting in the wings and were eager to take their seats.
The Mexican is under more pressure than ever after his poor form this season continued in Qatar. Perez crashed in the Sprint race and finished only 10th at the Grand Prix, hampering his own efforts with three separate penalties, all for multiple track limit violations.
Just five points scored in the last three rounds is hardly befitting of a driver with the best car on the grid so far. Pérez has been so useless this season that Lewis Hamilton, despite having a much less competitive car, is only 30 points behind him and chasing him for second place in the drivers’ championship.
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko is rarely afraid to speak his mind. The Austrian, who has for many years been in charge of the team’s driver development, reminded Pérez that sister team AlphaTauri currently has plenty of talent on the books.
“Now it becomes serious with two such strong drivers in the McLaren,” he said of Pérez’s problems, speaking to Austrian broadcaster ORF. “I hope we can maintain second place. At first it seemed quite comfortable, but now the lead is melting.
“Checo now has to keep its promise. We have three drivers in the AlphaTauri team and [Liam] Lawson is the reserve driver for four cars. So a lot can happen [in the future]. “
New Zealander Lawson replaces Daniel Ricciardo, who is expected to return from injury at the United States Grand Prix. The other rider involved is Yuki Tsunoda, who signed a new contract with a good start to the season, although some inconsistencies emerged for the Japanese rider towards the end of the season. Reflecting on Perez’s race at the Losail International Circuit, team principal Christian Horner suggested an intervention to try to help his driver stop the rot. “I think we really need to sit down with Checo because we know what he is capable of and he is not in that form at the moment,” he told reporters.
“We desperately needed him to get back to that form to stay in second place in the championship. So it’s frustrating that he only came away from the weekend with one point. I thought he could have had it , even if he started from behind the net had a chance to score big today, or deservedly so. “He had a terrible weekend – the incident [in qualifying] and then, unfortunately, he had three penalties in the race. Without those penalties, when You add 15 seconds to his time, suddenly he’s a lot further.” back in the points, scoring on a day when Lewis didn’t score, so it was a missed opportunity to really try to consolidate that second spot.
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