Red Bull has confirmed Sergio Perez will not return to drive for the team in the 2025 Formula 1 season.
The widely-expected news was confirmed in statements issued by Perez and Red Bull on Wednesday. Perez’s said they had “reached an agreement to part ways.”The team is yet to confirm who will replace Perez. Liam Lawson, who has started 11 races for RB over the past two seasons, has been tipped as a potential replacement.
“I’m incredibly grateful for the past four years with Red Bull Racing and for the opportunity to race with such an amazing team,” said Perez. “Driving for Red Bull has been an unforgettable experience, and I’ll always cherish the success we achieved together.
“We broke records. reached remarkable milestones and I’ve had the privilege of meeting so many incredible people along the way.
“A big thank you to every person in the team from management, engineers and mechanics; catering, hospitality, kitchen, marketing and communications, as well as everyone at Milton Keynes. I wish you all the best for the future.’
Perez said it had been “an honour” to spend the last four seasons as Max Verstappen’s team mate.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
He joined Red Bull from Racing Point (now Aston Martin) in 2021. He played a pivotal role in Verstappen’s championship victory that year, notably in the season finale at Yas Marina.
However Perez’s form dropped off significantly after that last win. Although he finished second in the drivers’ championship to Verstappen last season, he claimed less than half as many points as his team mate.
Perez appeared to rediscover his form over the opening rounds of this season. He followed Verstappen home to complete one-twos for the team in the first two events and reached the podium twice more by round five.
After the Monaco Grand Prix Red Bull handed Perez a new, two-year contract. But by that point his season was already showing signs of going off the rails. He was eliminated in the first round of qualifying in Monaco then suffered a huge crash with Kevin Magnussen shortly after the start of the race.
The difficulties Red Bull experienced with their car this year seemed to affect Perez more than Verstappen. While Verstappen secured his fourth consecutive drivers’ championship, Perez floundered, taking just a single top-six finish after the sixth round. Red Bull lost the constructors’ title to McLaren as a consequence.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Despite having extended Perez’s contract, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner began to drop hints towards the end of the season that he might not continue to drive for them. However Perez repeatedly denied any suggestion he would not remain at Red Bull in 2025.
Horner thanked Perez for his contribution to the team’s success. “From the moment he joined in 2021 he proved himself to be an extraordinary team player, helping us to two constructors’ titles and to our first one-two finish in the drivers’ championship,” he said.
“His five wins, all on street circuits, were also a spectacular mark of his determination to always push to the limit. While Checo will not race for the team next season, he will always be an extremely popular team member and a treasured part of our history.”
The news leaves Perez without an F1 race seat for 2026. He made his grand prix debut with Sauber in 2011 and quickly impressed, coming close to beating Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari to victory at the Malaysian Grand Prix the following year.
He secured a dream move to McLaren for 2013, but was dropped to make way for Kevin Magnussen after just one season. Perez then spent a fruitful period at Force India (which later became Racing Point) where he impressed by repeatedly taking the midfield team to podium finishes.
In 2020 Perez claimed a shock win for the team in the Sakhir Grand Prix. However new owner Lawrence Stroll chose to cut Perez’s three-year deal short by two seasons to bring Sebastian Vettel in. But when Red Bull chose to drop Alexander Albon at the end of the season, Perez grabbed his chance to drive for them.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories - and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:
Formula 1
- Hamilton dismisses ‘negativity’ over his radio calls. ‘Other drivers are almost abusive’
- Eddie Jordan, former F1 team principal, manager and driver, dies aged 76
- Antonelli “got really scared” when he made “big save” on first lap of Australian GP
- Hadjar agrees with Marko over “embarrassing” reaction to Australian GP exit
- FIA’s new rear wing test ‘directed at other teams, not McLaren’ – Norris
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
18th December 2024, 17:09
It’s Checover.
2011-2024.
notagrumpyfan
18th December 2024, 18:22
He resigned after he re-signed.
As @picasso-19d-ftw noted this morning.
Picasso 1.9D FTW (@picasso-19d-ftw)
18th December 2024, 21:57
Appreciate the hat-tip, notagrumpyfan :)
Constantijn Blondel
19th December 2024, 7:37
Yep … Checomate.
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
18th December 2024, 17:10
Well this is a bolt out of the blue.
Who on earth would have predicted this?
I was looking forwards to his resurgence and total domination of the sport next season!
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
18th December 2024, 19:20
It’s a Christmas miracle
Jungle
19th December 2024, 6:59
Lol. To quote the late great Murray Walker…
“To say that I am shocked is a monumental masterpiece of an understatement!”
Jere (@jerejj)
18th December 2024, 17:12
Finally official & consequently, his F1 career will be over for good unless GM cares about Slim money, which is realistically the only way he could get offered a drive by them.
I’m surprised about the lack of simultaneously confirming Lawson unless Tsunoda is about to receive the promotion, after all.
Simon
18th December 2024, 17:33
Not “as expected”, occy?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
18th December 2024, 19:01
I’m not so surprised cause performance wise dropping perez was the easy decision; picking his replacement not as easy, neither tsunoda nor lawson impressed me, I’d have got sainz when I had a chance.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
18th December 2024, 19:01
Or bottas, he also looked more convincing than either of them to me.
Paul (@frankjaeger)
18th December 2024, 17:12
Hallelujah! Sainz is the only true contender for Max out of the bunch but looks like it’s going to Lawson
Le Jimster (@lejimster82)
18th December 2024, 17:48
Sainz is a very good driver but I don’t think he’s anywhere near Max’s level. Lawson is still adjusting to F1 and made a big step from last years cameo to this year’s. If he is chosen as Checo’s replacement I fully expect him to do better than most people expect.
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
18th December 2024, 18:18
Not only is SAI at VER’s level but so are ALO, LEC, NOR, PIA, RUS, and HAM.
Dex
18th December 2024, 18:40
Not according to what we saw, especially this season.
kuvemar
18th December 2024, 18:46
This season specifically? When Max looked hardly anything more than ordinary when he didn’t have the clearly best car?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
18th December 2024, 19:03
There’s no comparison between the consistency verstappen has and those drivers; leclerc looked like the closest this year, but still nowhere near enough.
Norris made too many mistakes, worse season than leclerc, hamilton had a terrible season, piastri doesn’t have norris’ speed, russell was fairly ok, and alonso had some meh races too.
An Sionnach
18th December 2024, 19:18
Precisely
miciek (@micio)
18th December 2024, 19:48
@esploratore1 one thing that everyone is missing from this analysis is that it’s hard to be consistent when there are drivers around you that try to crash into you and push you off.
This is a common thing between Mac and Charles: nobody was trying to hunt them down this season
Dane
18th December 2024, 18:28
If they truly cared about winning another constructor’s title then hiring Sainz would be an easy decision. They really just want someone who play bridesmaid to Max Verstappen and Sainz is too competitive.
Asanator
18th December 2024, 19:15
“Valteri?…..It’s Christian…”
MacLeod (@macleod)
19th December 2024, 7:53
actually Valteri Bottas would be good as he is good in qualifying …
Edvaldo
18th December 2024, 17:15
That’s a shame.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
18th December 2024, 17:18
I think it’s very sad that it went this way I reckon Checo could’ve fallen back into the midfield and performed very well. In a Haas for example…
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
18th December 2024, 19:08
Yes, but he was adamant that he wanted to stay at red bull and wouldn’t take a midfield drive and this is the result, a bit like albon, who also wouldn’t accept a demotion to TR.
Franky
18th December 2024, 17:20
It Will be highly gratifying to see the same comments repeated on Lawson as he drives the second RB car aka the F1 lemonade
Jere (@jerejj)
18th December 2024, 17:24
Too early to judge.
Edvaldo
18th December 2024, 17:30
Red Bull is probably aware of this, but they probably prefer another guy there no matter what, even if doing as badly as him at first. At least they can hope for progress in the long run, but Perez is a dead end, he isn’t improving, in fact, he’s getting worse.
To keep him another year after these disastrous 2 last seasons could damage their reputation as a serious organization.
NoelyNoel (@noelynoel)
18th December 2024, 18:17
I’d suggest Red Bull’s credibility has been on a rollercoaster this year – the highs and lows of Max’s season and WDC, and the lows and lowers of Checo’s last four-fifths of a season. If they’d retained Checo into 2025, I fear their reputation would have been damaged further.
In the past, Red Bull and the sister team have been ruthless in culling people who weren’t performing to their high standards. I feel Checo was lucky to have made it longer that Ricciardo did, he should have been done before the end of the summer break.
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
18th December 2024, 17:29
One is a veteran who had a long career, the other is nearly a rookie, the comments will be nowhere similar if that happens.
MichaelN
18th December 2024, 19:27
Maybe, but he’s still the teammate of the reigning champion. He’s going to get criticized and mocked if he goes out in Q1, and rightly so. This is his chance, so he’d better do everything he can to take it. The sport isn’t kind on people who get dropped from top teams.
Coventry Climax
18th December 2024, 17:37
Two years overdue, minimum.
Coventry Climax
18th December 2024, 17:38
You think he’ll ask his tequila back now?
Picasso 1.9D FTW (@picasso-19d-ftw)
18th December 2024, 17:45
No, because he’s a decent person. Great cheap shot though.
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
18th December 2024, 18:03
He is a “Pay-to-Play” parasite who thinks that money is all that matters.
He will already be paying people to write books about how great he was.
MichaelN
18th December 2024, 19:29
Quite unfair. All drivers are paid ridiculous sums, and Pérez is one of the few that puts a significant part of that into societally beneficial programs. And he hasn’t buggered off to Monaco to hoard more of his millions either.
NoelyNoel (@noelynoel)
18th December 2024, 18:20
£45 for 700ml of tequila is not a cheap shot.
Picasso 1.9D FTW (@picasso-19d-ftw)
18th December 2024, 21:59
@noelynoel very good point!
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
18th December 2024, 17:59
No wonder they went over budget. It’s three departments.
SteveP
18th December 2024, 18:19
One department, three sets of books??
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
18th December 2024, 18:31
Three departments cooking something. :-)
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
18th December 2024, 18:00
14 years in F1, a longer career than many world champions such as Prost, Nelson Piquet, Alan Jones, Lauda, Hakkinen
Louis (@louis)
18th December 2024, 18:02
Perez wasn’t dropped by McLaren end of 2013 to make way for Alonso; it was Kevin Magnussen who replaced him.
Wer
18th December 2024, 18:10
This whole “F1 climbing ladder” is such a joke, I keep saying.
Liam Lawson only finished 3rd in Formula 2, and it was in his second season. But he will get to drive F1’s top car and get wins in F1.
Meanwhile, many F2 champions either don’t even get to F1, or they get in, but to drive crappy cars.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
18th December 2024, 19:15
Yes, it depends which team you are associated with and on luck, as in a driver about to be fired on the main team right as you are on the B team.
Russell and ricciardo didn’t have good timing, russell had to wait years until he got a mercedes opportunity and the car stopped being good at that point, and ricciardo also saw the red bull get worse when he joined.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
18th December 2024, 21:13
@esploratore1 True, but Russel and Ricciardo did at least get the opportunity to get into F1. If Mercedes didn’t have the links with Williams to get Russel a seat, he might not have got that chance. Ricciardo was more likely to get into F1 since Redbull had a dedicated junior team, but they still needed to sack one of their previous Torro Rosso drivers, who from memory didn’t get much time to prove themselves (though I think RB made the correct call here).
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
18th December 2024, 18:21
I hope PER held out for more money than he was going to make driving the next 2 years. It isn’t just a job loss but most likely an end to this career.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
18th December 2024, 19:18
I saw a report they’d pay him 16 mil few days ago, not sure if accurate, but wouldn’t be far from the amount of money ricciardo got when he got fired from mclaren.
MichaelN
18th December 2024, 19:22
Must be nice to get four centuries worth of the average UK annual income for losing your job on account of being bad at it. What a strange world F1 is.
MacLeod (@macleod)
19th December 2024, 7:58
That is not strange when there is a contract breach that must be paid. Otherwise you go to court and that could be much more expensive then a deal/arrangement.
MichaelN
19th December 2024, 10:14
Those kind of figures are always strange. Even a single million is about half a person’s working life worth of money on an average UK salary. It’s an enormous amount. Counting in millions makes it seem normal, but it’s not.
And sure, contracts can be bought off.
jpvalverde85 (@jpvalverde85)
18th December 2024, 18:43
Red Bull needs some fresh talent, and ain’t saying just drivers. Not exactly by his own hand but Checo play this year has been subpar, but if one can read between lines is pretty evident that he was thrown under the bus often to gather intel/xp to elevate Max results (without taking Max credit or merit, he is among the very best drivers now and ever), his race engineer more often than not played for Max rather than for him, and in that scenario, no effing body could perform or deliver. I just hope he finds some place to keep that career going, WEC could be a cool place to build some confidence again and most teams there could be well served with his skill (and backing too).
Wish the best for Lawson, cuz anything but that will make him the next victim.
MichaelN
18th December 2024, 19:20
You’d think a marketing company that just so happens to sell drinks would have been able to give Pérez and Ricciardo both a more noteworthy and indeed profitable send-off than just dumping them some days after their final appearance.
And in what universe is Lawson a better hire than Sainz? Horner’s inability to manage two drivers is really hurting the team.
Tommy C (@tommy-c)
18th December 2024, 20:08
I feel bad for Sergio. He was a great driver. Not the best by any means but it pains me to think he’ll be remembered as the underperforming teammate to Max Verstappen, especially given so many new fans have come onboard in the last 5 years. Longer term fans will remember his incredible performances at Sauber and his great reliability and consistency at Force India and Racing Point. That win in Bahrain was brilliant and much needed to save his career. At the time, the bulk of the comments here thought it was an absolute travesty that he was soon to be out of a drive due to circumstance alone. I’m sad that his career has seemingly ended with a whimper and that he wasn’t able to be given the send off he deserves, as self- inflicted as that may be. Not many drivers get to stay in F1 for over a decade and fewer still win multiple races. Sergio can be proud of his time in F1 even if it didn’t end the way it should have.
Mark (@mrcento)
18th December 2024, 21:49
I kinda don’t. Let’s not forget, as touched on above, he was all but out of F1 a few years ago (Very, very unfairly), He’d lost his drive at Racing Point and lucked out that he was available right at the point Red Bull were in chaos with the 2nd seat and had no realistic options and needing that experienced driver as a number 2. And he had backing from a billionaire to help secure it.
From that fortuitous timing, rather than retirement or becoming another Hulkenberg type raking around for drives at Haas etc, he’s had 4 years in a top car, won 5 more races, got 3 pole positions, 28 podium finishes, came 2nd and 3rd in the drivers championship and won 3x constructors titles. And also had a lot more patience and chances than guys like Kvyatt, Gasly and Albon got.
I’m sure if you asked Hulkenberg or KMag if they’d swap their careers for the last 4 years of Sergios, including ultimately losing their drive at the end of year 4, they’d still rip your arm off.
A very, very good upper midfield driver that got to extend his career with the chance of a lifetime, became a multiple race winner, in a championship winning team and raked in the best part of 70 million quid in the process, i doubt he’ll care what anyone thinks of him, and rightly so.
Franky
18th December 2024, 20:18
I am guessing but it will be extremely funny to see the new number 8 (or more) driver on the field with rb number two car, infamously known to be tricky to drive for at least the past 8 generations. Even the last two races it couldnt race properly because of clutch issues. Really? An RB F1 car with clutch issues??? And of course the driver is the guilty one no matter his name.
Mark (@mrcento)
18th December 2024, 21:34
But, But, But…. As he said in every interview, He has a contract!
FlyingLap (@flyinglapp)
18th December 2024, 23:06
Now do Lance.
Robert Williams (@weiliwen)
19th December 2024, 3:29
I feel bad for him, even though I feel the firing was fair. He came off worse than the other three drivers Verstappen has been paired with; they got other drives, while Perez is probably done.
Johnny
19th December 2024, 6:23
Checo-mate.
Chaz (@chaz)
19th December 2024, 8:38
Best wishes to Checo. Shame he could not get a nice send off from the factory and wider team behind the scenes. Perhaps the contractual payout will suffice. The Sword of Damocles is no longer a concern.
A User
22nd December 2024, 14:19
I will feel sorry for anyone that has the second Red Bull seat if they don’t have a very similar driving style to Max.