Defiant Perez focused to deliver: ‘I will be here next year’
A defiant Sergio Perez says he is fully focused on delivering a succession of strong performances in the two races leading into F1’s summer break, and insists he will be racing with Red Bull Racing in 2025, dismissing rumors of his replacement.
Perez was recently handed a two-year extension to his contract with Red Bull, but the Mexican’s persistent poor from of late has called into question his future with the team.
The 34-year-old’s underperformance has weakened Red Bull’s position in the championship relative to its McLaren and Mercedes rivals which have been eating away at its points lead, leading team boss Christian Horner to call Perez's shortfall "unsustainable".
Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko recently stated that Perez’s situation will be reviewed during F1’s upcoming break, suggesting that a performance clause included in the driver’s contract - by which the team may terminate the latter if Perez’s deficit to teammate Max Verstappen in the Drivers’ standings exceeds 100 points – could be activated.
After his dismal weekend at Silverstone, Perez emphasized the importance of the upcoming two races in Hungary and in Belgium, but on Thursday at the Hungaroring he dismissed the notion that he was entering a pivotal week regarding his future.
“There’s nothing related to that,” he said. “Obviously I cannot talk about my contract.
“What I said was the next two races are important for me, I want to go on holiday with a good spirit and I think it’s good for my side of the garage to go with a good spirit.
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“I wasn’t talking about anything else. I’m fully focused to fully deliver. I will be here and here again next year and that’s nothing different. I’m just fully committed to myself.
“These two races give the same amount of points and we need these points from now until the end of the year, so it doesn’t change anything for me.”
While addressing his situation, Perez tried his best to deflect attention away from his contract and refocus everyone on racing and team performance.
“I renewed my contract not long ago,” he explained. “I don’t think that’s relevant, for us, for the team.
“What’s relevant is we focus on track, we focus back in the factory, we focus on the things we can control. The rest is just external noise, that’s how it works.
“At the end of the day I come here to get my very best, my maximum effort and when I’m here, when I’m at home training or at home in the simulator I focus on the important stuff.
“At the end of the day the noise – I think it’s a lot bigger when you’re at Red Bull. But it’s the beauty of this challenge.
“It’s why I decided to sign and extend my contract with this team because I love the challenge.
“It’s really hard but it takes absolutely everything out of you and that’s why I wanted to continue here.”
Delving deeper into the difficulties that have plagued his season, Perez believes a series of setbacks have combined to create a “vicious circle” hindering his performance.
“I haven’t been performing, first of all, at my 100% in the circumstances when you put yourself in difficult positions,” he said. “I take a lot of responsibility for that.
“Obviously there’s been a lot of circumstances as well with different sort of races, so I think it’s a little bit of everything when you are in this vicious circle.
“We had a really strong Friday but then I messed up in Silverstone in qualifying.
“Then with the strategy in Silverstone we just throw the dice and see what happened and it didn’t work for us.
“The main thing is I’ve been in this business too long and I know it will only matter where I finish in Abu Dhabi. So let’s ride the rollercoaster and hopefully get back on form very soon.”
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