With Sergio Perez’s F1 career coming to what seems to be a sudden end, the Mexican driver deserves to be remembered for more than his lacklustre final season. Perez won’t be part of Red Bull’s F1 driver line-up in 2025 and, with an onslaught of young talent arriving on the grid, his chances of finding a way back onto the grid don’t seem particularly high. With Red Bull and Perez agreeing on exit terms after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, bringing to an end a four-year tenure in which the Mexican driver scored five Grand Prix wins and enjoyed a career-best second-place finish in F1 2023, 2024 proved an ignominious ending for a driver who spent over a decade proving to be one of the good guys of Formula 1.
His reluctance to back down in the face of inevitability resulted in little fanfare for his final race in Abu Dhabi, an event at which it was obvious a stand-off was occurring as Perez stuck to his line of intending to see out the next two years as contracted. It’s a testament to Perez’s character that Red Bull gave him so long to try picking up the pieces after he fell apart in the middle part of this season – a situation not afforded to every driver. Having endured the mental battering that the 2023 Miami Grand Prix represented as Max Verstappen demolished him, Perez was able to refind some form last year – giving Red Bull hope that he could do the same again this year.
But, aside from the first quarter of the season with Perez able to exploit the superiority of .
:upscale()/2025/01/08/840/n/1922794/tmp_CS3Hyk_d03e1c4a00fa6d47_Basic_Collage-3-Main_-_1456x970_35_.jpeg)
