Why was Checo Pérez’s season in F1 so bad?
The Mexican Checo Pérez experienced his worst campaign since joining Red Bull, after an accumulation of errors. What mistakes did you make?
The continuity of the Mexican pilot Sergio Perez in Red Bull is in doubt after a nightmare 2024, in which he started as the runner-up and fell to eighth place in the standings, unable to help the team to a third constructors’ title in a row, despite the solo crowning of his partner, the Dutch Max Verstappen.
This is a situation unthinkable a year ago, when the Austrian squad won 21 of 22 events, two of them with Checo, but it began to get complicated before the start of the campaign, first with an internal struggle and then with the results within of the track.
The controversy reached Milton Keynes in February, when an employee accused the director Christian Horner of bad behavior, which sparked an internal investigation, which was later discarded, but along the way it caused a rupture in the organization, with the manager on one side and Jos Verstappenfather of Max and Helmut Markocompany advisor, on the other.
The dispute resulted in the goodbye of Adrian Neweythe technical director and designer of the car that put the team at the top, a true motorsports mastermind who announced his departure for 2025 towards Aston Martinfar from Austrian intrigues.
However, this internal battle was not immediately reflected in the results, in the opening in Bahrain, Verstappen and Checo made it 1-2, which they repeated in Saudi Arabia and then in Japan, although for China the Mexican fell to third, due to behind the british Lando Norrisof McLarensecond.
After the first five dates, the tables looked like those of 2023, with Max as the leader with 110 points followed by Pérez with 85 and Red Bull with an advantage of 44 units over Ferrari, until the Great Circus went to Miami, where Norris imposed, with the Red Bulls in second and fourth place.
In Europe, problems appeared, especially for Sergio, who could not advance to Q3 in Emilia Romagna and started 11th, but did not progress much to finish eighth, while, in Monaco, one of his favorite circuits, he was left out in the first part of the qualification and that frustrated his race, cut short from the start, after a collision with the Dane Kevin Magnussen (Haas).
That began to become the norm for the man from Guadalajara, who in Canada also stayed in Q1 and on Sunday he did not finish due to another accident, for which he took responsibility: “I touched the wet part of the circuit in turn six and I couldn’t brake, they have “It’s been a tough couple of weeks, but we’ll regroup and learn.”
These two consecutive abandonments were noted in the classification, where he fell to fifth place, 87 units behind Verstappen, although his squad remained at the top of the constructors’ championship.
In Barcelona, the situation did not improve for Checo, who did reach Q3, but received a three-place penalty for dangerous driving in Canada, which forced him to start in 11th, then followed a three-stop strategy and finished in eighth, while the monarch was the winner, to offer a forceful contrast.
After being seventh in Austria, he lived a nightmare in Silverstone, he was second to last in qualifying, after staying in the gravel in the first minutes of the session, which even caused a red flag, “I made a mistake and it hurts a lot because to disappoint your team that way is not good,” he stated, to be 17th the next day.
In the following four events, the Mexican was able to finish in the Top 10 and his teammate also had problems due to the drop in the car’s performance, but in Hungary he hit the wall on Saturday, prompting Horner’s statement that the organization He could not continue “on one leg”, while in Belgium he was sacrificed to achieve the fastest lap and take it away from Norris.
In Baku, another of his favorite circuits, Pérez had the opportunity to recover, he started on the second row and in the race he was third with two laps remaining, but he had contact with the Spaniard Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) that left both out of competition. “It seems that Carlos turned to the left of the track and there was a touch, which caused a lot of damage, it cost us a lot of points for Checo and for the championship, so we are disappointed,” analyzed Horner.
In Singapore he barely saved one unit, while Verstappen was second and in Austin he was seventh, with Max in third, so questions began within the team as to whether the man from Guadalajara was getting the most out of the car, which was no longer the best on the grill, with the progress of McLaren and Ferrari.
At the home event, Pérez could not even pass the first part of the qualification, with difficulties understanding the vehicle, “at low speed I cannot brake or stop the car and as soon as I apply the brake I start to skid and block, that is “My biggest problem and where I suffer the most, here (in Mexico City) is more notable.”
The next day the situation did not improve and Checo was the last among those who finished, after a fierce battle with the main contender for his seat, the New Zealander Liam Lawson, of RB, to damage his team’s options in the table, in the that Red Bull fell to third position, with 512 points, 362 of them from Verstappen.
In rainy Sao Paulo, Pérez was left out in Q2 and then finished 11th, while Max won again after more than four months without doing so; In Las Vegas the problems continued on Saturdays for the man from Guadalajara, who did not go beyond Q1 and the next day only completed the Top 10, for which he criticized the strategy.
Upon arriving in Qatar, for the final stretch of the season, with Max already champion, attention focused on Checo and his fall, which placed him eighth in that department, with less than half of his teammate’s units and with his future in doubt so it stopped being just a bad moment and became a whole calendar.
“When you are not able to extract 100 percent of the car, it is irrelevant how good or bad it is and that is what happened, I have not been able to do it because of the difficulties I have had in recent months with it; That is the biggest problem, you go through periods and as a team we are understanding and working hard to make sure we fix it,” Pérez summarized regarding his year.
The closure did not help his cause, in Qatar he abandoned after losing control on lap 38, while in Abu Dhabi he did not even complete the first lap when he collided with the Finn Valtteri Bottas (Sauber), the perfect way to summarize the season because in qualifying at Yas Marina he even shouted at his race engineer, Hugh Bird for not telling him that a lap had been reset and wasting a new set of tyres.
A nightmare 2024 for the Mexican, who had 152 points, his lowest amount in F1 since 2020 when he was still at Racing Point, while Red Bull registered 589, 271 less than in 2023, to finish in third position in the championship, in partly because of what Max’s squire stopped doing.
Although the engineers are also responsible for his bad year, incapable of improving the car without Newey involved, Hugh Bird for placing it in compromising situations on Saturdays and even the mechanics for some errors in the pit stops, the biggest culprit is Pérez, who He was never able to turn the situation around when it got complicated.
