Sergio Perez’s four-year stint at Red Bull is at an end – and with that, his Formula 1 career appears to be over too.
The 34-year-old who started his 281st grand prix this year has been shown the door at the end of the season with two years left to run on his contract.This isn’t unfamiliar territory for Perez: the same happened to him in 2021 when Racing Point let him go. But on that occasion Red Bull rode to his rescue. This time there are no vacancies on the grid for 2025.
Perez has lasted longer as Max Verstappen’s team mate than any other driver: Daniel Ricciardo walked after less than three years, Pierre Gasly was booted out after half a season and Alexander Albon lasted a year and a half. The team showered him with praise for the role he played in helping Verstappen clinch his first world championship in 2021 by delaying his rival Lewis Hamilton during the title-deciding race in Abu Dhabi.
Even three years on the team was still introducing him as the ‘Mexican minister of defence’ at their season launch. But Perez’s 14 years as an F1 driver deserves to be remembered for much more than the time he successfully played rear-gunner. Here are 10 of his best performances since his debut.
10. 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
Grid: 1st; Race: 4th
Early in 2022 Perez appeared to click more readily with Red Bull’s first answer to Formula 1’s new ground effect regulations. He claimed his first pole position in Jeddah and looked on course to take victory until a poorly-timed Virtual Safety Car period helped Verstappen and the Ferrari drivers get ahead of him. He was therefore under-rewarded for one of his best performances in a front-running car.
9. 2013 Indian Grand Prix
Grid: 9th; Race: 5th
Perez’s McLaren stint was considered a failure at the time. However it wasn’t appreciated at the time that the team was heading into a slump which it has only recently emerged from: It was the first of eight consecutive seasons in which they failed to win a race.
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This was another race characterised by heavy tyre degradation: eventual winner Sebastian Vettel pitted for fresh rubber just two laps in. In a season when McLaren fell to fifth in the championship, Perez’s run to fifth in the Indian Grand Prix was their best result until the final race of the season, and one of few highlights that year.
8. 2011 Australian Grand Prix
Grid: 13th; Race: Disqualified (rear wing)
A solid debut performance which should have been rewarded with a points finish yielded nothing as both Saubers were disqualified for rear wing infringements. Perez started four places behind team mate Kamui Kobayashi but led him to the chequered flag.
This was Formula 1’s first race after switching to new tyre supplier Pirelli. Perez proved a master of their fragile early rubber from the off, rising up the order on a single-stop strategy.
7. 2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Grid: 3rd; Race: 1st
A trend emerged over Perez’s four years at Red Bull, in which he would perform better earlier in the season, then tail off as they year went on. In 2023 he won twice during his early purple patch, including at Baku – always a strong venue for Perez – where he simply out-ran Verstappen.
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Azerbaijan’s circuit has remained one of his best venues: even amid the purgatory of the second half of his 2024 campaign, Perez was on course to out-score Verstappen in Baku until his needless late collision with Sainz.
6. 2016 European Grand Prix
Grid: 7th; Race: 3rd
Perez clicked immediately with Baku’s unusual, high-speed street circuit. He finished on the podium on his debut but it could have been even better – he originally qualified on the front row but a grid penalty due to a gearbox change following a crash in practice meant he started seventh.
5. 2012 Italian Grand Prix
Grid: 12th; Race: 2nd
Another race which underlined Perez’s credentials as a ‘tyre whisperer’. He started on hards, ran long and switched to mediums, then picked off the likes of Kimi Raikkonen, Nico Rosberg and Ferrari pair Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso for second.
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Towards the end of the race he began to close on leader Lewis Hamilton, so much so that McLaren advised their driver to increase his pace. No wonder McLaren considered Perez worth a punt as Hamilton’s replacement the following year.
4. 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix
Grid: 4th; Race: 3rd
After being axed by McLaren just one year into his stint at the team, Perez teamed up with Nico Hulkenberg to form an all-new line-up at Force India. Many expected Hulkenberg to have the beating of his team mate, but Perez came out on top when the pair crossed swords at the second round of the season in Bahrain, proving his lack of podium finishes the year before had been more the car’s fault than his.
3. 2022 Monaco Grand Prix
Grid: 3rd; Race: 1st
Conditions at the track to do exactly that in 2022 race. Lining up third ahead of Verstappen – who reportedly suspected his team mate deliberately crashed in qualifying to secure his place ahead of him – he tracked the Ferrari drivers early in the race.
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Timing his switch to slick tyres to perfection, Perez jumped into the lead and stayed there, resisting pressure from Carlos Sainz Jnr as his tyres grained badly over the final laps.
2. 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix
Grid: 9th; Race: 2nd
An early switch to wet weather tyres as rain fell at Sepang proved an inspired move for Perez, which put him in the lead of a race for the first time in his F1 career. He lost the lead to Fernando Alonso in the pits due to a quick Ferrari tyre change, but spent the rest of the race tailing his rival.
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As Perez held second and cut Alonso’s lead from over seven seconds to one, his race engineer Marco Schupbach warned him at one stage “Checo, be careful, we need this position,” which some considered a coded warning to let their engine supplier win. However it was true that Sauber needed the second place, and arguably Perez also needed the warning, as he slid off the wet track more than once. That didn’t stop him delivering Sauber’s best result as an independent team.
1. 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix
Grid: 5th; Race: 1st
Perez had to wait longer than any other driver – 190 races – for his first grand prix win. But when it finally came he delivered it in style – and at a time when his future in F1 was in serious doubt. He was just one week away from his final start for Racing Point, who had terminated his contract for the next two seasons in order to hire Sebastian Vettel.
The Sakhir Grand Prix, a one-off held in the pandemic-struck 2020 season on Bahrain’s unusual Outer circuit, got off to a frantic start. Perez made it up to third behind the two Mercedes when Charles Leclerc punted him off.From 18th, Perez mounted an astounding charge back to win. It was a night of competing fairytale stories: George Russell could have won in his first appearance for Mercedes as a substitute for Lewis Hamilton, but his misfortune handed victory to the driver whose career was hanging by a thread.
After the season finale, Red Bull signed him up, and the Sakhir Grand Prix proved not Perez’s penultimate start but his first of six grand prix wins.
Over to you
What do you rate among the best performances of Perez’s career? Have your say in the comments.
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Edvaldo
18th December 2024, 17:21
I do like a lot his race in Baku 2016. Force India was actually 2nd fastest that weekend, he lost his 2nd place on the grid due to a penalty but finished 3rd anyway. Hulk on the other hand, completely fumbled it not even making it to Q3.
By that point it was clear Perez might not be the faster of the two but clearly was the smarter one. With the huge abyss that separates top teams from the middle of the pack, it’s not common to suddenly be 2nd fastest and he made full use of the opportunity finishing 3rd by pace, not luck or some well-timed rain shower.
Jere (@jerejj)
18th December 2024, 17:26
2012 Malaysian, 2012 Italian, 2023 Saudi Arabian, & 2023 Azerbaijan GPs for me.
Luke S (@joeypropane)
18th December 2024, 18:02
It’s mad that Perez has been in F1 long enough to have driven a silver Vodafone sponsored McLaren…
rprp
19th December 2024, 7:32
15% of the grid have had that.
Sumedh
18th December 2024, 18:09
I loved the Sakhir Grand Prix. Winning after being sacked is a special victory (especially if it is your first).
Checo well and truly deserved to win that and with that get a contract with a top team.
Alas, that really was the peak. But what a peak that was.
Craig
18th December 2024, 19:26
I don’t think it was his peak, but he wasn’t exactly given many chances after that. It reminded me of Jorge Lorenzo going to Repsol Honda in MotoGP where he was made to look like an absolute chump when the bike, clearly made for his team mate, spat him off at every opportunity.
Steve Rogers (@yossarian)
18th December 2024, 21:20
Sticking with the MotoGP theme, the current Red Bull reminds me of the 2010’s Ducati back when Stoner was the only one who could get any performance out of it. No one else, not even greats like Rossi or Lorenzo, could adapt to the riding style needed. So it would be very unfair to judge Perez as well as Gasly or Albon by their time in the car.
Based on the rest of his career I’d probably rank him similar to Sainz or Rosberg, not out and out the fastest or best racer but close enough that with a bit of luck he could put a title challenge together and be a deserving winner. Except maybe Baku where for some reason he was untouchable, I can’t remember Max being quicker than him in any season regardless of what else was going on.
And I’d say Sakir and the photo of him under the fireworks is one of the most iconic moments of the last decade if not longer.
Edvaldo
18th December 2024, 21:33
To me, he’s just like Fisichella, whom i compared him with the other day.
It’s ok to not match Max and even drive below the possibilities of the car, but crashing and causing damage, wrecking whole weekends because he couldn’t keep it within track limits, sleeping on pit exit, and losing position, all of which he did in these 4 seasons, it’s inexcusable. With a top car, he was a letdown and has not been the safe hands you often expect experienced drivers like him to be.
Dane
18th December 2024, 18:45
It’s easy to let recency bias taint your view of Perez but he’s had a pretty long career and has reached more heights than most of the grid.
Martin (@f1hornet)
18th December 2024, 19:59
He was actually a pretty good driver, and (until this year) a much stronger number 2 to Max than Gasly or Albon. In some ways he’s unlucky to get a race winning car after his peak as a driver and with a team mate who is one of the best ever, which means as you say the recency bias can make people think he was an absolute chump. He certainly wasn’t as anyone who watched him in these races would attest to.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st December 2024, 2:11
Hopefully you mean combining 2021, 2022 and 2023, because 2023 taken in isolation was no better than what gasly or albon did.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st December 2024, 2:11
The reason he got 2nd in the championship was the dominant car, which the other 2 drivers didn’t have.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st December 2024, 2:13
2023 Formula 1 driver rankings #20: Sergio Perez
Formula 1
Not just me btw, this very website!
Unicron (@unicron2002)
18th December 2024, 23:58
Excellent article after the unsurprising announcement today. Of course like us all, Checo was a flawed man. But let us not today dwell on his faults, his mistakes – but on his successes, on the days where he absolutely lit up the F1 world for all those watching.
I for one will not forget the joy of seeing him only just fall short of grabbing a win from Alonso at a damp Sepang in 2012, but the real highlight is that incredible race on the high speed, one-off Sakhir race of 2020 where it finally all came together for him and he showed his greatness that night. Bravo for that.
Deerhunter
19th December 2024, 3:28
Man, I was there for the 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix, and seeing Perez bringing Peter Sauber to tears was probably the highlight of the year.
Ditto with Maldonado and Frank Williams later in Catalunya.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st December 2024, 2:15
I think sakhir 2020 is indeed a highlight, as the first win and in recovery conditions, a very special race, so was kinda expecting to see it around here, although I didn’t know it’d have made the top spot.
Obviously he was also without a seat (unfairly back then), so he really needed such a performance to convince red bull to get the (at the time) top team shot he deserved.