Christian Horner has confirmed that Sergio Perez will appear in a “couple of show runs” for Red Bull in F1 2025 despite losing his race seat to Liam Lawson.

Red Bull announced this week that Perez will vacate his race seat for the F1 2025 season, with Lawson stepping up from the Racing Bulls junior team to become Max Verstappen’s new team-mate.

Sergio Perez to appear in Red Bull show runs during F1 2025 season

Lawson’s place alongside Yuki Tsunoda has been inherited by 2024 F2 runner up Isack Hadjar, with Red Bull completing their driver lineups for the F1 2025 campaign on Friday.

Perez’s departure comes at the end of a disastrous F1 2024 season, which saw the Mexican driver finish seven places and a massive 285 points behind team-mate Verstappen in the Drivers’ standings.

The 34-year-old’s lack of contribution saw defending champions Red Bull slump to a disappointing third in the Constructors’ Championship, finishing 77 points adrift of first-placed McLaren.

The announcement of Perez’s exit came after negotiations between team and driver, with Perez understood to have been offered the chance to maintain ties with Red Bull in an ambassadorial-type role.

Horner has confirmed that Perez will remain involved with the team in F1 2025 by participating in a number of show runs – public demonstrations of old F1 cars, often taking place on the streets of major cities – next year.

Asked if Perez has effectively been sacked by Red Bull, Horner told talkSPORT: “No, it’s a little different to that.

“Sergio has been with us for four years and, for the first three years, he played a huge role in the team and certainly that first Drivers’ World Championship.

“You’ve only got to think back to Abu Dhabi ’21, the role that he played for the team on that day; Constructors’ Champions in 2022/23; he was second in the Drivers’ Championship last year.

“He’s just had a really tough year this year and we sat down last week – we’d obviously been talking about it a little bit beforehand – and decided that it was right for both of us, just to step back, for him to step out of the car, take a bit of time with his family, work out what he wants to do.

“He’s still going to be involved with the team. He will be doing a couple of show runs with us during next year.

“But it was right for him – because it wasn’t enjoyable for him either, getting all this scrutiny and pressure and expectation every weekend.”

Red Bull’s move to replace Perez comes just six months after the veteran agreed a new two-year contract – later revealed to be a one-plus-one deal – ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix in June.

Horner revealed that “stipulations” in the arrangement had allowed Red Bull to act ahead of F1 2025, adding: “He had signed a new contract, but of course in those contracts [there are clauses].

“I’m not going to go into the details of the contract, but inevitably there are stipulations, there are obligations between the team and the drivers.

“We sat down and we talked it through. It’s about relationships and we’ve always had a great relationship with Sergio.”

Perez told media including PlanetF1.com at the United States Grand Prix in October that F1 2024 has been a “terrible” and “really, really difficult” season from his perspective.

Horner added that Perez was well aware that his season was not up to the required standard – and he hinted that the former Sauber, McLaren and Force India driver could find a way back on to the grid as soon as next year.

Daniel Ricciardo returned to a full-time seat with Racing Bulls (then AlphaTauri) during the 2023 season after losing his McLaren seat at the end of the previous campaign, with Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon recovering from damaging spells at Red Bull to carve out respectable F1 careers.

Asked if Perez simply came up short in F1 2024, Horner said: “By his own admission.

“He was 280 [sic] points behind his team-mate this year. We lost the Constructors’ Championship by just over 70 points, so he knew that by his own high standards he wasn’t achieving what he wanted or what we needed as a team.

“We just had a grown-up discussion about it. He’s a great guy.

“He’ll go away and work out what he wants to do. Maybe he’ll want to come back to the sport, maybe even next year.”

Perez’s exit sees Lawson become Verstappen’s team-mate after just 11 grand prix appearances spread across 2023/24.

In an exclusive interview with PlanetF1.com at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (bottom), Lawson declared himself ready to partner Verstappen and brushed off comparisons with Gasly and Albon.

Lawson said: “I don’t know what they felt when they were there.

“You can always look at it as an outsider and think: ‘This is what it looks like they felt.’ But I don’t know what it was like for them.

“I believe, for anybody to go up against Max, you have to be realistic and know that he’s the fastest guy on the grid right now and that you’re not going to be outqualifying the guy by half a second.

“It’s not going to be something that’s really going to be happening. For me, it’s more the opportunity that’s there to learn from the best.

“For me as a driver, to be able to go in against the guy who’s won four world championships and is well seasoned… he’s been in that car for a long time.

“That car is almost… not developed around him, but he’s been a massive part of developing that car and understands it very well.

“In terms of how to drive it, it’s all right there on paper.

“When you see all the data that he brings in, for me as a driver to be alongside that, to be able to learn from him and have all that access, I think that’s what’s exciting for me about the opportunity… if that opportunity was to come in the future.”