Sergio Perez’s first feedback since leaving the Formulation 1 grid after shedding his Pink Bull seat indicated a sabbatical from driving.
The Mexican’s struggles behind the wheel of the RB20 resulted in Liam Lawson changing him alongside Max Verstappen for the brand new marketing campaign, with Perez’s 14-year keep within the championship delivered to an finish.
Talking at an occasion in Mexico, he mentioned he would wait six months earlier than making a call on what comes subsequent, citing an opportunity to spend time along with his household. However what ought to come subsequent? Our writers have a look…
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Entries from Alex Kalinauckas, Stuart Codling, Kevin Turner, Oleg Karpov and Jake Boxall-Legge.
Turning a blind eye to Formulation E can be a mistake
Formulation E drew a sold-out 40,000 crowd in Mexico on the weekend, offering a really actual alternative for Perez
Picture by: Joe Portlock / Motorsport Photographs
The timing of Perez’s first public assertion since his Pink Bull axing is fascinating as a result of his look on the Feria de Leon pageant happened on the identical weekend as one other high-profile motorsport collection was making its annual go to to Mexico Metropolis.
Formulation E’s early years featured loads of ex-Formulation 1 drivers signing up – lured by the championship’s aggressive (if misguided) try to place itself as an F1 different, plus vital paydays laborious to seek out elsewhere within the motorsport sphere.
Each points aren’t fairly what they as soon as have been – with FE now sustaining its area of interest inside a distinct segment with much less shouting and fewer Felipe Massa-style mega offers coming for drivers leaving F1. Though, the likes of Kimi Raikkonen, Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo have been at all times unlikely FE drivers – given their earlier profession achievements and earnings.
However FE has one thing that could possibly be very fascinating to Perez: a well-liked annual race on the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. The grandstands within the upgraded Foro Sol have been packed once more throughout Saturday’s race received by Oliver Rowland, together with these lining the pit straight – though FE’s shorter monitor structure in comparison with the standard circuit means numbers are smaller total.
However, from my expertise attending this E-Prix twice, the Mexican followers are simply as passionate a couple of very completely different type of motorsport and can be much more so with their nation’s most profitable F1 driver showing too.
Perez signing with an FE group would hold the cash rolling in – with prime earners within the electrical championship mentioned to be banking near £2m a yr. It is not F1-level cash, nevertheless it’s nonetheless good for knowledgeable racing driver and, as has constantly been seen all through FE’s historical past, twin programmes with one other championship are nonetheless being organized even across the ongoing irritating calendar clashes with the World Endurance Championship. Perez’s supervisor Julian Jakobi – most well-known for representing Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost concurrently – additionally manages a bunch of current FE drivers and so would know the very best potential opening.
However in showing in Guanajuato as he did final weekend when FE was in his nation’s capital suggests Perez himself will not be enthusiastic about such a transfer anyway (or is at the least not being so open about it with no FE driver slots obtainable at this stage anyway and the potential of an F1 return, nevertheless unlikely that could be).
However dismissing this thrilling collection and the cleaner emissions expertise it champions – particularly necessary for an especially congested metropolis akin to Mexico Metropolis – can be a mistake given how a lot love Perez would discover with such a gig. AK
The important thing to happiness is away from the monitor…
Antonio Perez has insisted the household has not left F1
Picture by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Photographs
In 1797 the service provider and someday peace activist James Tilly Matthews was arrested and later dedicated to a lunatic asylum after interrupting a debate within the Home of Commons. Matthews believed {that a} felony gang, presumably comprising overseas spies, was torturing him from afar with invisible rays from a machine he referred to as an “air loom”.
I cite this instance due to Sergio Perez’s father Antonio’s current feedback, a person with aspirations in direction of excessive workplace and a historical past of creating peculiar utterances in public. His newest was refusing to rule out a racing gig for Checo in Formulation E, which is able to “quickly be the primary motorsport”.
Uh-huh.
“The Perez household has not left F1,” he advised a no-doubt gobsmacked scribe from the racing web site SoyMotor. He may wish to suppose that, nevertheless it has left them. This will likely be made plain subsequent time he tries to swipe again into the paddock and the digital gates emit their discordant fanfare of rejection.
“What’s coming is historic, I guarantee you,” Antonio continued. Lastly some sense. Checo’s self-imposed six-month sabbatical will likely be coming to an finish proper about Goodwood Competition of Velocity time. He might drive the BRM V16 up the hill; it is even noisier than his dad.
Flush with money after being purchased out of his contract with Pink Bull, Perez Jr does not must work and seems to be in no urgent hurry to get again to it, as evidenced by his acknowledged intention of taking six months off.
By that point there will likely be vanishingly few top-flight racing choices on the desk except Cadillac inexplicably finds slim pickings on the sponsor entrance, Liam Lawson underperforms to the extent that Pink Bull goes into better-the-devil-you-know mode, or Alpine fires Jack Doohan [i] and [i] Franco Colapinto. Stranger issues have occurred – simply not invisible torture rays from an air loom.
“I am having fun with my youngsters, my household, and my buddies very a lot,” mentioned Checo throughout an look at a pageant final weekend. In six months he may simply discover these – aside from his dad that’s – slightly extra of a pull than the hurly-burly of F1. Except he bets his pay-off on crypto and desires to begin incomes once more to place the youngsters by way of faculty.
Maybe the important thing to happiness away from the monitor is to lock his dad up someplace quiet – just like the mad lady within the attic in a Victorian novel? SC
Swap to sportscars so as to add to Mexican hero standing
May Perez resume battle with Kevin Magnussen in sportscars?
Picture by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Photographs
It was fairly apparent Perez wasn’t having fun with his motorsport in 2024 and everyone knows he’s higher than he regarded final season. Fairly than try to extend his F1 profession – or surrender altogether – the 34-year-old ought to try to rediscover his motorsport mojo elsewhere.
The World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship are having fun with an incredible interval, with plenty of robust drivers and producer involvement. There are already loads of ex-F1 drivers in sportscar competitors, together with 2009 world champion Jenson Button (in WEC with Jota Cadillac) and 2024 Haas driver Kevin Magnussen (IMSA with the RLL BMW squad).
The competitors stage can be excessive however the stress can be so much much less. Qualifying was his largest drawback alongside Max Verstappen at Pink Bull and which means little in contests lasting something as much as 24 hours.
And if he actually is pretty much as good at taking care of the tyres in races as was beforehand thought, then that may be a superb asset, too.
Relying on the place he landed – and certainly a prime group would desire a six-time grand prix winner with 14 seasons of F1 expertise – there would even be the possibility to win the Le Mans 24 Hours. He is already received the Monaco GP and, although Perez does not fancy IndyCar, he hasn’t dominated out showing in main races; a Le Mans win would give him two-thirds of motorsport’s triple crown.
It will additionally add to his standing at house. Mexico’s solely Le Mans winner is Pedro Rodriguez – maybe the nation’s best racing driver – and it is greater than half a century since his success with Ford.
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It will be unhappy if Perez’s final racing season was 2024. Ending his profession elsewhere can be extra becoming for his skills. And he may truly get pleasure from it! KT
Main Cadillac into battle
May Perez be the motive force to steer Cadillac’s F1 cost?
Picture by: Cadillac Communications
An unpopular opinion: Sergio Perez is an excellent driver…
You may pause now if you happen to really feel the urge to shout, punch the air and even throw some objects round.
However let’s simply bear in mind what obtained him the Pink Bull seat. After all, it was a consequence of the group’s personal earlier – and slightly questionable – choices: neither Pierre Gasly nor Alex Albon have been prepared (or some would argue ‘ok’) to be in a prime group and associate Max Verstappen – and Perez’s hiring appeared like a logical step. Greater than that, it was additionally honest. After so a few years of paddling by way of midfield, scoring occasional podiums and being dependable and constant, the Pink Bull gig felt like a welcome and well-deserved reward. And it actually was. For every thing he’d achieved with Drive India (and Racing Level afterward, after all), he deserved an opportunity in a prime automobile.
It is not a nasty factor that he obtained that probability – not many ‘deserved’ it greater than the Mexican. However now we in all probability know that he isn’t fairly the highest driver.
However is he as unhealthy as he’s being made out to be on social media? Properly, likely not. Maybe it’s certainly draining and demoralising for any driver to share a storage with Verstappen – and 4 years of fixed stress to match the Dutchman’s excellence might be simply sufficient to trigger burnout.
There are numerous within the paddock who imagine that Perez can be rather more aggressive if Pink Bull had developed its automobile for him and never his team-mate as nicely. With the automobile he likes, he definitely would not have regarded as hopeless as he did within the final three-quarters of the 2024 season.
If after six months he decides to proceed in F1, there’s in all probability nonetheless a spot for him on the grid. Not in a prime automobile, after all – but when somebody wants a man with expertise, why not give Perez a shot?
For Cadillac, he’d be one of many apparent candidates to placed on their shortlist. After all, it will trigger some outrage on social media. There will likely be individuals shouting, punching the air and throwing issues. However it will truly make a whole lot of sense. The final couple of years have positively proven that Perez is not a world championship calibre driver, however earlier than that he had achieved sufficient to not solely justify his presence on the grid, however to be thought-about some of the dependable and constant racers in F1.
And it could be that he nonetheless is when he isn’t sharing the storage with Verstappen. OK
Give up racing for a life in politics
May his experiences in F1 set him up for a profession in politics?
Picture by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Photographs
Sergio Perez’s performances in 2024 have been so abject that he ought to not have had a leg to face on when it got here to retaining his seat for 2025. In “regular” F1 phrases, the concept that Perez might need the tiniest slither of an opportunity to remain at Pink Bull ought to have been non-existent.
However there was a crutch, one which Perez often leaned on in each dialogue about his future: a contract. There’s an previous adage in F1, one which decrees contracts are scarcely definitely worth the paper they’re written on – however for the six-time race winner, the notion that he had one was very beneficial certainly. This was a contract that Pink Bull had thrust underneath Perez’s nostril early into the season to stave off one other nasty bout of ‘the yips’, which he’d suffered from in 2023’s mid-season interval, as Christian Horner hubristically surmised that job safety would provide a handy remedy to shaky kind. Seems the 2 aren’t mutually unique, and Pink Bull needed to negotiate a possible hefty payout to get Perez off its arms.
The opposite facet that made it much less of a no brainer to jettison Perez had lain in his industrial worth; to the Mexican fanbase, he’s nothing in need of revered. The Mexican Grand Prix returned to the calendar due to Perez’s affect; corporations working in his house nation have clamoured for him to be the face. His contribution to Pink Bull’s annual price range was mentioned to be north of $20 million a yr.
He is fashionable, and he is steadfast in his beliefs. He knew that, along with his contract up for debate, what to say within the circumstances to impress the response he wanted and strengthen his place. Naturally, a profession in politics awaits.
Perez is already of political inventory; his father Antonio, not too long ago recognized for his limelight-bothering antics amid the discussions over his son’s future (when’s that listing of imply ol’ journalists popping out, by the best way?), was a member of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies as half underneath former president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrado. For somebody of Perez’s recognition, maybe changing into concerned within the Mexican political framework would not be an excessive amount of of a stretch.
It would not be uncharted territory for an ex-F1 driver both; Carlos Reutemann was a senator in Argentina, though notably resisted any efforts to persuade him to run for president. In maybe lesser-known driver-turned-politician tales, ex-Ferrari driver Patrick Tambay served as a deputy mayor of Le Cannet – a commune north of Cannes, whereas Sakon Yamamoto sat on Japan’s Home of Representatives as a member of the conservative Liberal Democratic Social gathering.
Does Perez have the curiosity? In reality, we have by no means truly requested him, though the weapons-grade politicking of F1 may serve him nicely for the marginally much less fractious environs of parliament. If his potential to remain calm underneath, let’s face it, overwhelming stress can stay unfettered, he is likely to be a beneficial asset to a political occasion someplace. JBL
Time will inform what Perez’s subsequent transfer is to be
Picture by: Pink Bull Content material Pool
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