Perez “completely collapsed” for Red Bull in Belgian GP

Red Bull’s motorsport advisor Helmut Marko has blasted Sergio Perez after he “completely collapsed” in the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix.

Red Bull is set for talks on Monday to assess its driver line-up for 2025, with Perez under threat of losing his seat with the world champions.

The 34-year-old has been in wretched form and went from second on the grid at Spa-Francorchamps to finish eighth (promoted to seventh after George Russell’s disqualification). He was also comfortably beaten by his Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen, despite the Dutchman having a 10-place grid penalty for an engine change that meant he started 11th.

Marko told Sky Germany: “Sergio had the opportunity to take a good result from second place. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Especially in the last stint, he completely collapsed, where he set 1m48s lap times.

“What looked so positive in qualifying unfortunately didn’t materialise in the race.”

When asked about Monday’s meeting to assess their driver line-ups across Red Bull and sister team RB, Marko added: “For us, the situation is such that we will also go through the overall situation for 2025. We have a number of drivers and we have a concept.

“But of course every result is [important] for Sergio, and eighth place from second on the grid is certainly not what we expected.”

Perez is without a win since April 2023, coming at the Azerbaijan GP, and Red Bull had offered him a two-year extension earlier in the season in an attempt to turn his performances around.

Red Bull felt that in doing so it would free the pressure on Perez to enable him to deliver on track, but the anticipated results have not materialised.

It means that Daniel Ricciardo, Liam Lawson or Yuki Tsunoda are in line to replace him if Red Bull want to shake up its driver line-up, although it is not yet known if the change would happen mid-season as Formula 1 teams head for the summer break.

Meanwhile, Perez blamed a lack of power on the straights, traffic, tyres, strategy and even the balance of the car for his poor performance. He did pit late on to record a morale-boosting fastest lap of the race on a new set of soft tyres.

However, he is defiant that he will still be driving for Red Bull at the Dutch Grand Prix after the summer break and says he will not answer any more questions about his future.

“It was a very disappointing race,” Perez said. “It started well, I was just struggling a lot on the straights. I don’t know what was going on, but I had to save battery early on in the first couple of laps, and I was just very weak on the straights, and once I managed to clear it, charge the pack a bit, I was staying there.

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

“But then the second stint, jumping onto the medium tyre with all the traffic behind, it just made it really, really difficult. Very tricky.

“We did quite a short stint as well, so we were just out of sync. I think we were just not good with tyres today. Balance wasn’t there as well, so plenty of things to analyse on our side.

“On Saturday I had a good qualifying, a good day. It doesn’t change anything. I think we have too much going on in the team and a lot of things that we have to focus on, and we cannot waste any energy with all this speculation.

“This is the last time I will speak about the future, so just to make it clear for everyone, I will not be speaking anymore. I will not answer any more questions about the future.”

Additional reporting by Markus Luettgens and Filip Cleeren