What should Perez’s next step be after Red Bull? Our writers have their say

Sergio Perez’s first comments since leaving the Formula 1 grid after losing his Red Bull seat indicated a sabbatical from driving.

The Mexican’s struggled behind the wheel of the RB20 resulted in Liam Lawson replacing him alongside Max Verstappen for the new campaign, with Perez’s 14-year stay in the championship brought to an end.

Speaking at an event in Mexico, he said he would wait six months before making a decision on what comes next, citing a chance to spend time with his family. But what should come next? Our writers take a look…

Entries from Alex Kalinauckas, Stuart Codling, Kevin Turner, Oleg Karpov and Jake Boxall-Legge.

Turning blind eye to Formula E would be a mistake

The timing of Perez’s first public statement since his Red Bull axing is interesting, because his appearance at the Feria de Leon festival took place on the same weekend as another high-profile motorsport series was making its annual visit to Mexico City.

Formula E’s early years featured plenty of ex-Formula 1 drivers signing up – lured by the championship’s aggressive (if misguided) attempt to position itself as an F1 alternative, plus significant paydays hard to find elsewhere in the motorsport sphere.

Both aspects aren’t quite what they once were – with FE now maintaining its niche within a niche with less shouting and fewer Felipe Massa-style mega deals coming for drivers leaving F1, although the likes of Kimi Raikkonen, Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo were always unlikely FE drivers – given their previous career achievements and earnings.

But FE has something that could be very interesting to Perez: a popular annual race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. The grandstands in the upgraded Foro Sol were packed again during Saturday’s race won by Oliver Rowland, along with those lining the pit straight – although FE’s shorter track layout compared to the usual circuit means numbers are smaller overall.

But, from my experience attending this E-Prix twice, the Mexican fans are just as passionate about a very different form of motorsport and would be even more so with their country’s most successful F1 driver appearing too.

Perez signing with an FE team would keep the money rolling in – with top earners in the electric championship said to be banking close to £2m a year. It’s not F1-level money, but it’s still good for a professional racing driver and, as has consistently been seen throughout FE’s history, dual programmes with another championship are still being arranged even around the ongoing frustrating calendar clashes with the World Endurance Championship. Perez’s manager Julian Jakobi – most famous for representing Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost simultaneously – also manages a host of present FE drivers and so would know the best potential opening.

But in appearing in Guanajuato as he did last weekend when FE was in his country’s capital suggests Perez himself may not be interested in such a move anyway (or is at least not being so open about it with no FE driver slots available at this stage anyway and the potential of an F1 return, however unlikely that may be).

But dismissing this exciting series and the cleaner emissions technology it champions – especially important for an extremely congested metropolis such as Mexico City – would be a mistake given how much love Perez would find with such a gig. AK

The key to happiness is away from the track…

Antonio Perez has insisted the family has not left F1

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

In 1797 the merchant and sometime peace activist James Tilly Matthews was arrested and later committed to a lunatic asylum after interrupting a debate in the House of Commons. Matthews believed that a criminal gang, possibly comprising foreign spies, was torturing him from afar with invisible rays from a machine he called an “air loom”.

I cite this example because of Sergio Perez’s father Antonio’s recent comments, a man with aspirations towards high office and a history of making peculiar utterances in public. His latest was refusing to rule out a racing gig for Checo in Formula E, which will “soon be the number one motorsport”.

Uh-huh.

“The Perez family has not left F1,” he told a no-doubt gobsmacked scribe from the racing website SoyMotor. He might like to think that, but it has left them. This will be made plain next time he tries to swipe back into the paddock and the electronic gates emit their discordant fanfare of rejection.

“What is coming is historic, I assure you,” Antonio continued. Finally some sense. Checo’s self-imposed six-month sabbatical will be coming to an end right about Goodwood Festival of Speed time. He could drive the BRM V16 up the hill; it’s even noisier than his dad.

Flush with cash after being bought out of his contract with Red Bull, Perez Jr doesn’t need to work and appears to be in no pressing hurry to get back to it, as evidenced by his stated intention of taking six months off.

By that time there will be vanishingly few top-flight racing options on the table unless Cadillac inexplicably finds slim pickings on the sponsor front, Liam Lawson underperforms to the extent that Red Bull goes into better-the-devil-you-know mode, or Alpine fires Jack Doohan [i] and [i] Franco Colapinto. Stranger things have happened – just not invisible torture rays from an air loom.

“I’m enjoying my children, my family, and my friends very much,” said Checo during an appearance at a festival last weekend. In six months he might just find these – apart from his dad that is – rather more of a pull than the hurly-burly of F1. Unless he bets his pay-off on crypto and needs to start earning again to put the kids through school.

Perhaps the key to happiness away from the track is to lock his dad up somewhere quiet – like the mad woman in the attic in a Victorian novel? SC

Switch to sportscars to add to Mexican hero status

Could Perez resume battle with Kevin Magnussen in sportscars?

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

It was pretty obvious Perez wasn’t enjoying his motorsport in 2024 and we all know he is better than he looked last season. Rather than try and prolong his F1 career – or give up altogether – the 34-year-old should try and rediscover his motorsport mojo elsewhere.

The World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship are enjoying a great period, with lots of strong drivers and manufacturer involvement. There are already plenty of ex-F1 drivers in sportscar competition, including 2009 world champion Jenson Button (in WEC with Jota Cadillac) and 2024 Haas driver Kevin Magnussen (IMSA
with the RLL BMW squad).

The competition level would be high but the pressure would be a lot less. Qualifying was his biggest problem alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull and that means little in contests lasting anything up to 24 hours.

And if he really is as good at looking after the tyres in races as was previously thought, then that would be a good asset, too.

Depending on where he landed – and surely a top team would want a six-time grand prix winner with 14 seasons of F1 experience – there would also be the chance to win the Le Mans 24 Hours. He’s already won the Monaco GP and, though Perez doesn’t fancy IndyCar, he hasn’t ruled out appearing in major races; a Le Mans win would give him two-thirds of
motorsport’s triple crown.

It would also add to his status at home. Mexico’s only Le Mans winner is Pedro Rodriguez – perhaps the country’s greatest racing driver – and it’s more than half a century since his success with Ford.

It would be sad if Perez’s last racing season was 2024. Finishing his career elsewhere would be more fitting for his abilities. And he might actually enjoy it! KT

Leading Cadillac into battle

Could Perez be the driver to lead Cadillac’s F1 charge?

Photo by: Cadillac Communications

An unpopular opinion: Sergio Perez is a very good driver…

You can pause now if you feel the urge to shout, punch the air or even throw some objects around.

But let’s just remember what got him the Red Bull seat. Of course, it was a consequence of the team’s own earlier – and rather questionable – decisions: neither Pierre Gasly nor Alex Albon were ready (or some would argue ‘good enough’) to be in a top team and partner Max Verstappen – and Perez’s hiring seemed like a logical step. More than that, it was also fair. After so many years of paddling through midfield, scoring occasional podiums and being reliable and consistent, the Red Bull gig felt like a welcome and well-deserved reward. And it really was. For everything he’d done with Force India (and Racing Point later on, of course), he deserved a chance in a top car.

It’s not a bad thing that he got that chance – not many ‘deserved’ it more than the Mexican. But now we probably know that he’s not quite the top driver.

But is he as bad as he is being made out to be on social media? Well, most probably not. Perhaps it is indeed draining and demoralising for any driver to share a garage with Verstappen – and four years of constant pressure to match the Dutchman’s excellence is probably just enough to cause burnout.

There are many in the paddock who believe that Perez would be much more competitive if Red Bull had developed its car for him and not his team-mate as well. With the car he likes, he certainly wouldn’t have looked as hopeless as he did in the last three-quarters of the 2024 season.

If after six months he decides to continue in F1, there’s probably still a place for him on the grid. Not in a top car, of course – but if someone needs a guy with experience, why not give Perez a shot?

For Cadillac, he’d be one of the obvious candidates to put on their shortlist. Of course, it would cause some outrage on social media. There will be people shouting, punching the air and throwing things. But it would actually make a lot of sense. The last couple of years have definitely shown that Perez isn’t a world championship calibre driver, but before that he had done enough to not only justify his presence on the grid, but to be considered one of the most reliable and consistent racers in F1.

And it may well be that he still is when he’s not sharing the garage with Verstappen. OK

Quit racing for a life in politics

Could his experiences in F1 set him up for a career in politics?

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Sergio Perez’s performances in 2024 were so abject that he ought not to have had a leg to stand on when it came to retaining his seat for 2025. In “normal” F1 terms, the idea that Perez might have the tiniest slither of a chance to stay at Red Bull should have been non-existent.

But there was a crutch, one that Perez frequently leaned on in every discussion about his future: a contract. There’s an old adage in F1, one that decrees contracts are scarcely worth the paper they’re written on – but for the six-time race winner, the notion that he had one was very valuable indeed. This was a contract that Red Bull had thrust under Perez’s nose early into the season to stave off another nasty bout of ‘the yips’, which he’d suffered from in 2023’s mid-season period, as Christian Horner hubristically surmised that job security would offer a convenient cure to shaky form. Turns out the two aren’t mutually exclusive, and Red Bull had to negotiate a likely hefty payout to get Perez off its hands.

The other aspect that made it less of a no-brainer to jettison Perez had lain in his commercial value; to the Mexican fanbase, he is nothing short of revered. The Mexican Grand Prix returned to the calendar because of Perez’s influence; companies operating in his home country have clamoured for him to be the face. His contribution to Red Bull’s annual budget was said to be north of $20 million a year.

He’s popular, and he’s steadfast in his beliefs. He knew that, with his contract up for debate, what to say in the circumstances to provoke the reaction he needed and strengthen his position. Naturally, a career in politics awaits.

Perez is already of political stock; his father Antonio, recently known for his limelight-bothering antics amid the discussions over his son’s future (when’s that list of mean ol’ journalists coming out, by the way?), was a member of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies as part under former president Andrés Manuel López Obrado. For someone of Perez’s popularity, perhaps becoming involved in the Mexican political framework wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

It wouldn’t be uncharted territory for an ex-F1 driver either; Carlos Reutemann was a senator in Argentina, although notably resisted any efforts to convince him to run for president. In perhaps lesser-known driver-turned-politician stories, ex-Ferrari driver Patrick Tambay served as a deputy mayor of Le Cannet – a commune north of Cannes, while Sakon Yamamoto sat on Japan’s House of Representatives as a member of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party.

Does Perez have the interest? In truth, we’ve never actually asked him, although the weapons-grade politicking of F1 might serve him well for the slightly less fractious environs of parliament. If his ability to stay calm under, let’s face it, overwhelming pressure can remain unfettered, he might be a valuable asset to a political party somewhere. JBL

Time will tell what Perez’s next move is to be

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool