FORMULA ONE: Sergio Pérez’s form slump has become so dire that Red Bull Racing is openly suggesting his place at the team is no longer secure – and Daniel Ricciardo is waiting in the wings ready to pounce.
Just four races ago Sergio Pérez was touting his championship credentials. The Mexican had won two of the first four races and was only six points behind teammate Max Verstappen in the title standings.
But four rounds later and his title campaign is in tatters.
His points gap to Verstappen has blown out to 69 points, bordering on three clear victories. The Dutchman can afford to retire from this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix and again next week in the UK without losing his lead.
This isn’t just a story of Verstappen operating at a very high level, though that’s undoubtedly a big part of it.
Since winning his last race in Azerbaijan Pérez has been hammered not just by Verstappen but also by Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Mercedes’s Lewis Hamilton.
In that stretch of races the 33-year-old has scored a paltry 39 points. Verstappen has amassed 102, while Alonso and Hamilton have picked up 57 and 54 respectively.
Pérez is in comfortably the fastest car on the grid, while neither Alonso nor Hamilton is in regular victory contention. Yet Alonso is just nine points behind Pérez in the drivers standings, with Hamilton a further 15 adrift.
The Mexican has gamely attempted to write off his underperformance as circumstantial – a little bit of a bad luck mixed with some bad timing.
But it’s coming close to looking less like a sad coincidence and more like a worrying trend.
At four of the eight grands prix to date he’s failed to qualify in the top 10, and at those four races he failed to finish on the podium.
Three of those races have come from the last three events – Monaco, Spain and Canada.
It was at the last of those that he confessed he was purely lacking pace to Verstappen.
“I think it’s something that mentally you have to be strong – and I’m strong,” he said. “I know I will overcome this difficult period.
“But it’s a little bit more concerning not having the pace. I really hope that we are able to get back to our form.”
Pérez needs to do more than just hope. The jungle drums are starting to beat in that way they always do at Red Bull Racing, a team renowned for its ruthless driver management.
“His initial goal was two or three years [with the team],” Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko told Austrian broadcaster ORF. “That would be more than he planned anyway, and you just have to keep options open for the successor.”
And there’s a man in line ready to go.
“We will have [Daniel] Ricciardo in the car for three days after Silverstone during the tyre test, and then you can evaluate where Ricciardo really stands.”
Ricciardo has been rebuilding himself in the Red Bull Racing simulator after two debilitating years at McLaren. Team principal Christian Horner said he arrived with some very poor driving habits but after months of work started to look more like the Ricciardo who made a formidable name for himself at Milton Keynes in 2014–18.
That development will be evaluated in a Pirelli tyre test following next weekend’s British Grand Prix.
If the Australian can prove he’s got his mojo back, for the first time the team has admitted that he could be in the frame for a drive.
Perez will likely feel secure with his contract running until the end of next season, and the team is said to be lining up Ricciardo for a drive at AlphaTauri in 2024, something the Perth native is reportedly open to – on the understanding a good season would lead him directly into Pérez’s seat in 2025.
“This for me would be like the fairytale,” he told ESPN. “Honestly, the fairytale ending [would be] to finish my career [at Red Bull Racing] if I could have it all my own way.”
The path to that fairytale cuts through Sergio Pérez, who’s fast running out of time to secure his long-term future with the title-winning team.
The Mexican needs a form reset, and it needs to start at this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix.
Any delay prove fatal to his career.
