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Horner responds to rumours of Red Bull replacing Sergio Perez Mexican GP

Horner mysterious about Perez's future: 'We will sit down again'

25 October at 22:24

Once again, Sergio Perez is rumoured to be replaced at Red Bull Racing. The Mexican could not necessarily improve after the summer break, and there is still a large gap between him and his teammate, Max Verstappen. Red Bull's team principal, Christian Horner responded to questions about his driver.

Horner: 'Yes, Checo is having a bad year'

When the team principal was asked about 'Checo' at the Mexico City Grand Prix's press conference, he pointed to his driver's answer from the previous day. On Thursday, Perez also said he is having a bad year. 

"I think he’s summed it up perfectly. It's been a bad year for Checo. He started strongly, and obviously, he's struggled for form since pretty much Imola onwards, and it's been sporadic. We saw flashes of performance. Azerbaijan, arguably, he could have won that race almost a month ago. We're hoping that we can give him the set-up and the confidence in the car to extract the kind of performances that we know he's very capable of," Horner began.

"Look, Checo's our driver. He's contracted for 2025. He's competitive. He's hungry. He's not happy with where he currently is. So as a team, we're doing our very best to support him. Obviously, a big weekend for him here, huge support. I think he's endorsing every product from Uber Eats to toilet roll this weekend, so it's impressive how many endorsements he's managed to line-up for himself," Horner continued.

Will Perez be replaced in 2025?

When asked about Perez's future, Horner remained mysterious. "As I mentioned earlier, Checo has a contract for next year, so he's currently our driver for 2025. Obviously, there is a a seat available in VCARB, and they're all Red Bull Racing drivers that are on that are on loan. So, we have the benefit of time to sit down with Laurent [Mekies] and Peter [Bayer] and look at all the options," Horner about the matter.

This article was written in collaboration with Jeroen Immink


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