Sergio Perez’s Pink Bull profession haul now ends at 5 wins, three poles and 932 factors. That he solely added to the final of these three classes within the 2024 Formulation 1 season is one in every of three key explanation why he’s lastly been forged off as Max Verstappen’s team-mate.
The opposite two are firstly the way it’s because of Perez bringing in simply 35% of the world champion’s factors whole that Pink Bull misplaced the 2024 constructors’ crown. And that issues simply didn’t have any hope of recovering.
As a result of Pink Bull tried each carrot and stick – every provided individually by the general public help of workforce boss Christian Horner and the equally open slamming of firm motorsport advisor Helmut Marko.
By his dwelling race in Mexico, it’d develop into apparent from the non-public messages of Pink Bull insiders that the heap of goodwill Perez had in-built the way in which he’d defended on Verstappen’s behalf in opposition to Lewis Hamilton late within the 2021 marketing campaign had lastly been exhausted.
He’d survived the summer season resolution on preserving him and Daniel Ricciardo of their respective locations. Now each and are gone. And, for Perez, there’s a season-long path of moments the place he ought to’ve achieved higher and that designate why he’s now been ditched.
1 Not profitable when Verstappen exited in Australia
Perez failed to choose up the victory in Australia after Verstappen suffered a reliability downside
Photograph by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Photographs
Though Ferrari regarded just like the workforce to beat over a race stint in Melbourne, Pink Bull began on pole and regarded threatening with Verstappen – three races into the a part of the season the place the workforce remained as dominant as in 2023.
However the Dutchman’s brake fireplace there meant he retired early on, with Carlos Sainz shifting serenely on to win, with the one curiosity in the remainder of the rostrum locations coming from the battle between his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc and the McLaren drivers.
Perez, with an RB20 that ought to’ve been a victory contender, was absent. This was after he’d impeded Nico Hulkenberg early in a qualifying that ought to’ve netted third on the grid.
He railed and was hampered by getting a visor tearoff caught in his underfloor on his technique to fifth. However this consequence highlighted how Perez ought to at all times be there to choose up the items when Verstappen is struck by misfortune for Pink Bull. And had he began greater he may’ve averted his race downforce loss.
2 Dropping out to Norris in China
A podium, however not the 1-2 Pink Bull had hoped for in China
Photograph by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Photographs
Melbourne may’ve been a blip, given how Perez had backed Verstappen up in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Japan. However on F1’s return to China, he let one other such consequence slip away as Verstappen cruised to a different win.
Having scrapped with Sainz and Fernando Alonso within the dash race Verstappen received, Perez was a hefty 0.3s off his team-mate in qualifying. Then, initially of the Chinese language GP, he let the Aston Martin get all the way in which round his exterior and a entrance row begin was blown.
Pushing too onerous early in every of his subsequent stints undid him in opposition to Lando Norris, who’d began behind, even across the various fortunes of the digital and actual security automobiles. Given the McLaren was but to get its season-transforming replace in Miami, this was a poor consequence for an RB20 driver.
When the MCL38 was massively upgraded in Miami, Perez’s weekend began badly in that he spent the dash battling Ricciardo’s RB earlier than he was behind each Ferraris in GP qualifying.
He then almost wiped Verstappen out initially of the race that kickstarted Norris’s season.
3 That Monaco crash begins totting up a hefty 2024 crash harm invoice
Expensive crashes started so as to add to poor leads to Monaco
Photograph by: Pink Bull Content material Pool
Having scored a well-known win in Monaco in 2022 – which let’s not neglect enraged Verstappen given how his now former team-mate’s Q3 crash stopped him doing higher than third – crashes blighted Perez’s subsequent two visits to the principality.
In 2023, he crashed out in Q1. Then, this 12 months, he was out in one other shunt on the opening lap – having didn’t progress from that qualifying opening section on tempo. The red-flag-causing shunt with the Haas drivers wasn’t fully his fault, however he had area to maneuver into with Kevin Magnussen looming on the meandering rise to Massenet.
“An entire catastrophe,” he’d stated after qualifying. However it summed up his weekend total too.
4 Submit-Monaco contract extension doesn’t assist Perez’s kind
A brand new contract put a spring in Perez’s step in Canada, however outcomes finally did not comply with
Photograph by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Photographs
Pink Bull’s most evident try to raise Perez from a spiral he’d actually been on since 2022 got here when it introduced he’d been granted a two-year contract extension on 4 June.
The pondering was that, supposedly safe in his place, his kind would enhance.
“The previous few races have been robust, there’s convergence on the grid, however we’re assured in Checo and sit up for his return to confirmed kind and efficiency, that we so usually see,” Horner stated earlier than subsequent day trip in Canada, issues have been simply as unhealthy.
Perez once more didn’t make it out of Q1 – blaming a automobile concern Pink Bull wouldn’t broaden upon.He then crashed out solo within the race – selecting to drive again to the pits together with his closely broken automobile to keep away from the danger of a security automobile look impacting Verstappen’s probabilities up entrance. In doing so he earned one other grid penalty for Spain, plus a 1/10 in Motorsport.com’s driver scores for the second weekend in a row.
After a so-so Spain – taking eighth from beginning eleventh when Verstappen received brilliantly in holding off Norris – Perez was terrible once more in Austria. On Pink Bull’s dwelling turf, he misplaced out to Nico Hulkenberg within the GP – being undercut twice with poor tempo in comparison with the Haas driver, who he couldn’t hold behind in a fierce remaining lap scrap.
5 Silverstone shambles
A dreadful British GP weekend noticed rumours of a summer season cut up with Pink Bull develop
Photograph by: Erik Junius
Subsequent day trip at Silverstone, each Pink Bull automobiles had moments at Copse within the drying Q1. However the place Verstappen held his wobble and solely broken his ground within the runoff, Perez span off on an outlap, bought beached within the gravel and would begin Pink Bull’s different dwelling race from the pitlane.
Within the British GP, he took intermediates earlier than the rain actually fell onerous and, needing an additional cease, ended up a stunning two laps down in seventeenth, whereas Verstappen rescued second.
“I’ve a contract with the workforce and I’ll flip issues round,” he vowed.
6 Extra of the identical in and after Hungary
Issues didn’t enhance for Perez in Hungary forward of the summer season break
Photograph by: Giorgio Piola
It was an analogous story for Perez in Hungary, the place Pink Bull unleashed the RB20’s first main improve – however solely on Verstappen’s automobile.
He certified sixteenth with one other Q1 crash and raced to seventh – all beneath the stress of Pink Bull’s administration contemplating activating a clause in his contract that put him in peril if he was 100 factors behind Verstappen because the summer season break kicked off.
On the time he was 141 behind, which might be a whopping 285 by the tip of the season. These behind-the-scenes discussions have been tied along with Pink Bull’s simultaneous resolution over whether or not to advertise Ricciardo again to its predominant workforce or ditch him for Liam Lawson, then nonetheless ready within the wings.
However it was finally determined to maintain the established order for the preliminary post-summer races, because it was felt on the time Ricciardo had at the very least achieved sufficient for issues to remain put. However Ricciardo’s keep of RB exit lasted simply 4 extra races, with Perez given six on prime of that.
7 Spa second goes begging
Ranging from second, Perez was out of rivalry after only a single nook
Photograph by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Photographs
Earlier than Pink Bull made its summer season calls on its F1 driver secure, Perez gave it but extra disappointment at Spa on the eve of the summer season break.
The quick, undulating monitor with its many high-speed corners is the right structure for its automobile bundle, with Verstappen duly blasting to prime qualifying right here for the fourth 12 months in succession. However, in one other very acquainted means, he would drop again on the grid for taking alternative engine elements.
Perez was due to this fact left to take what ought to’ve been a nailed-on Pink Bull win from second on the grid. However he was out of rivalry by the primary nook, as Hamilton piled by to chase and overhaul inheriting polesitter Leclerc, with the Mercedes driver happening to win (finally).
Perez carried on sliding backwards and eventually got here dwelling seventh – three locations adrift of Verstappen, who’d began 9 locations behind.
8 Baku increase ends in bust
Baku was the one which bought away, with a late crash with Sainz leading to an unlucky DNF
Photograph by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Photographs
As is so usually the case because of the impartial steering steadiness he likes from the set-ups required to deal with so many 90-degrees, Perez shone on the streets of Baku. In 2024, this was the one weekend the place Verstappen was nowhere, because the nadir of the RB20’s dealing with problem bit hardest and his set-up gamble backfired.
Perez due to this fact led the road for Pink Bull, though nonetheless solely qualifying fourth and 0.4s off Leclerc’s pole. But within the race, he labored his means into changing into a victory menace – and may’ve gotten forward of eventual winner Oscar Piastri however for Norris’s efforts to delay the main RB20 throughout the race’s pitstop section whereas the second McLaren ran the contra technique.
Main Piastri after this stage may’ve meant Perez overhauling Leclerc and claiming what would’ve been a primary win in 17 months and following on from F1’s earlier go to to Azerbaijan again in early 2023 (now set to be his remaining F1 triumph in a profession stretching again to 2011).
However he remained trapped behind the leaders. Then, when Leclerc’s tyres cried sufficient and the battle for second opened up with Piastri clear forward, Perez failed to maneuver into the acres of area to his left in a sudden battle with Sainz within the different Ferrari.
Contact was made – this time with Perez extra responsible. One other expensive restore adopted for Pink Bull and a much-needed victory for the embattled workforce was wasted.
9 Mexico errors make issues worse
Beginning out of place, Perez quickly ended up battling Lawson in what grew to become a drawn out rivalry
Photograph by: Pink Bull Content material Pool
Verstappen had lastly bought his workforce again to profitable methods within the Austin dash – after Perez had been unable to duplicate his respectable Baku kind on one other avenue setting in Singapore. In the principle race in Texas, he scrapped with midfielders and badly misplaced time to the frontrunners, earlier than heading to his dwelling race in Mexico.
The stress is at all times on Perez there, however, with the sphere so shut nowadays he was susceptible to one thing embarrassing: the Q1 exit that occurred. He blamed this on how he couldn’t “brake or cease the automobile and as quickly as I assault the braking, I begin sliding and locking up”.
Within the race, he was penalised for lining up too far forwards in his grid field and had a bruising encounter with Lawson that left him with harm. Getting the center finger from the New Zealander on his technique to ending lapped and final of the finishers was the ultimate indignity.
10 Qatar caps Perez’s Pink Bull profession
Perez’s Qatar weekend was embarrassing for all involved
Photograph by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Photographs
By this stage, Pink Bull sources have been sounding ever extra exasperated. The workforce had tried to assist Perez with the longstanding braking downside, however, seemingly, to no avail.
In Qatar, he was out in SQ1 after which bafflingly didn’t react to the lights altering from his newest pitlane begin for being fitted with a unique suspension specification as Pink Bull chased a determined answer to its dealing with ills even right here, 5 races on from its design breakthrough with its Austin ground and sidepod developments.
This gaffe let Williams’s Franco Colapinto nip forward and Perez was pitted throughout the dash to do extra set-up experiments on Verstappen’s behalf, which have been later deemed a failure. He at the very least made Q3 in GP qualifying, which his team-mate topped earlier than his George Russell row broke out.
Within the Qatar race, Perez was had regarded set to profit when the security automobile was referred to as for the particles and punctures Hamilton and Sainz had suffered as he’d been working between them.
However he botched this opportunity by spinning off solo simply because the neutralisation was about to finish.
He burned his clutch out attempting to get going once more, which was to reoccur after he’d been punted round by Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas on the season finale the next week in Abu Dhabi.
An underwhelming finish, then, for such a stint in F1’s greatest workforce of the present period.
Perez’s remaining act for Pink Bull – a lap one exit in Abu Dhabi
Photograph by: Lubomir Asenov / Motorsport Photographs
On this article
Alex Kalinauckas
Formulation 1
Sergio Perez
Pink Bull Racing
Be the primary to know and subscribe for real-time information electronic mail updates on these subjects
Subscribe to information alerts
