Perez doing enough to keep Red Bull F1 drive in 2024?

Ralf Schumacher says Sergio Perez’s days at “Red Bull are numbered” and Helmut Marko’s “not warm-hearted way of dealing with Perez” resulted in the driver’s recession

Schumacher thinks that Helmut Marko’s “not warm-hearted way of dealing with Perez” is to blame for the driver’s downturn and feels that Sergio Perez’s days at Red Bull are uncertain. Perez’s status at Red Bull has recently been in doubt after the Mexican racer dropped out of contention for the title at the start of the season, putting together five awful qualifying sessions.

With his colleague Max Verstappen gaining ground and providing a cause for fans’ participation in F1 betting, even when Perez returned to the pole position shoot-out, the Dutchman’s momentum was and continues to be, solidly with him.

Marko and Christian Horner feel that Perez has little chance of winning the championship after scoring 96 points since Miami, the first race of Verstappen’s nine-race winning streak, compared to the Dutchman’s 220.

However, they do agree that Perez “will be our driver in 2024,” despite Marko’s assertion that “nothing is 100 percent certain in Formula 1” and that “there are always performance-related situations somewhere that need to be discussed”.

Schumacher is inclined to believe the Red Bull motorsport advisor’s statements to be true

In his post-race Sky Deutschland column, the six-time Grand Prix champion wrote, “Sergio Perez once again made a mistake when he drove into the barriers at the entrance to the pits, and this action also resulted in a penalty that cost him second place in the end.”

“I think his days at Red Bull are numbered,” he continued. “Dr. Helmut Marko is not exactly known for his warm-hearted way of dealing with Perez. I think that Perez as a guy can’t deal with that so well, and that’s how I explain these serious mistakes. Perez looked very grumpy, disappointed, and also absent all weekend. I think that there were already agreements about a separation after the end of the season.”

Red Bull has many promising young drivers at their disposal, including Liam Lawson, Yuki Tsunoda, and Daniel Ricciardo, should Perez decide to depart after the season.

Lawson replaced Ricciardo on Saturday morning when the Australian was forced to withdraw with a broken hand, and Schumacher was delighted with his performance in his debut grand prix.

Is Lawson a better fit for AlphaTauri than Red Bull?

“He will be an option for AlphaTauri,” Schumacher said of Lawson. “Dr. Marko trusts him a lot, although some people see it a little differently. His weekend was okay, and he made the most of it. Incidentally, it is a sensation that a driver from the DTM has made it into Formula 1 again. That hasn’t happened for a long time.”

But Schumacher thinks Red Bull should consider hiring Lando Norris as Verstappen’s next teammate instead of looking to their pool of drivers: “I could imagine Lando Norris becoming Verstappen’s new teammate sooner. The two seem to be good friends.

“I assume that Verstappen will ultimately decide who his teammate will be. This is nothing unusual. That was already the case with Senna; my brother also had this right.

“When a driver like Verstappen contributes so much to the team’s success, I also think it’s important that you have your options as open as possible,” added Schumacher.

However, Norris does have a contract with McLaren that lasts until the conclusion of the 2025 season, and McLaren has stated several times that they won’t be releasing him early.