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.

Sergio Perez has no ‘Plan B’ after Red Bull split

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 the RB20 in those early races, the dip in the team’s speed as development went awry sent Perez spiraling.

In previous years, being only a few tenths behind Verstappen would have been no biggie – such a deficit might have meant fighting for fifth and sixth places rather than the podium. But, in this era of Formula 1 where budget caps restrict spending and an inability to quickly recover from missteps, those few tenths meant Perez was in no-man’s land.

Rather than fighting for those comfortable points finishes, Perez struggled to even reach the top 10 and, with his confidence dipping, the mistakes came – only exacerbating the mental spiral.

“Today is a total retirement; there is nothing, there is no plan B, there is no plan C; today, at this moment, the Formula 1 page is closing, as it closed before, before arriving at Red Bull,” Perez’s father, Antonio Perez Garibay, claimed last week when speaking to N+ FORO.

“He was sacked from Racing Point and there was no plan B; that was the end of Formula 1 at that point; then came the Red Bull opportunity.

“At the moment, there is nothing else in front and we have to live with it; learn it, enjoy it. Let him concentrate and enjoy his family.”

It’s a far cry from the uncomfortable denial of the facts that the Perez camp put up in the final weeks – Perez himself seemed unable to hold his hand up to his own underperformance, instead relying on his tried-and-trusted royal “we” as he and Red Bull desperately tried to find a way to make him more comfortable as the Constructors’ Championship bled away.

Even a change of race engineer, brought on by usual engineer Hugh Bird going on paternity leave, yielded no gains, and, once it became clear that Perez’s performance in 2024 had indeed cost Red Bull any chance of defending a title that, by rights, the team probably should have won, Perez’s days were always going to be numbered.

While there’s no denying the fact that Perez underperformed in F1 2024, this poor season shouldn’t be what his legacy in Formula 1 is defined by. There’s no indication that Perez was ever a World Champion level driver – his narrow success in securing P2 in the championship with the most dominant car in F1 history showed that he would need a very particular set of circumstances to do so – but the Mexican proved himself a particularly adept midfield peddler.

Perez is perhaps best described as the Giancarlo Fisichella of today. The Italian driver thrived in low-pressure environments, such as at Jordan, Benetton, and Sauber – but fell to pieces when paired with Fernando Alonso at Renault. That particular environment saw Fisichella dismantled by Alonso, with the pair getting along in most agreeable fashion – no doubt due to the fact Fisichella was no threat to Alonso’s superiority.

At the 2006 Australian Grand Prix, a race he’d won the year before in his first race for Renault, Fisichella was bluntly told by race engineer Alan Permane that he was two seconds slower than Alonso and to “come on”. While some drivers – such as Max Verstappen – may thrive in the fact of such directness, Fisichella needed a softer touch. He got this from Eddie Jordan and, later, found a home again with Force India – thriving once again to the point he almost won his final race with the team at the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix.

Perez appears to have been cut from the same cloth, with his brightest moments coming when the pressure wasn’t directly on him. With low expectations at Sauber in 2011, he was a regular points scorer and often had the measure of highly-rated teammate Kamui Kobayashi. Think of his shock podium at Malaysia 2012, when Sauber turned out to be surprisingly quick, with two further podiums that season being enough to land him a seat at the front-running McLaren team.

But, arriving at Woking, the higher expectations saw Perez fall away. While the McLaren MP4-28 was not a particularly potent machine, Perez was bested by Jenson Button and he couldn’t match the highs of 2012. Arriving at Force India in 2014 after being dropped by McLaren, Perez was back once again in an environment he was comfortable with. Within weeks, he was back on the podium with a third place in Bahrain.

The seven-year stint at Force India/Racing Point fully solidified Perez as being a very capable midfield driver as he frequently finished between seventh and ninth in the championship.

Saving the Force India squad and the current Aston Martin F1 workforce

Perez’s greatest legacy in F1 isn’t even entirely his on-track exploits however – it was his willingness to help his colleagues and friends at Force India as then-team owner Vijay Mallya wasn’t paying his bills.

While Perez had a strong personal relationship with Mallya, Perez took action against his team to force it into administration – this move being brought about by Perez, one of the team’s creditors, after being asked by other employees to help “save the team”.

“Monies due are from last year,” Perez said at the time.

“The thing is, there was a winding up petition from another customer, which would have closed down the team completely.

“Therefore I was asked to save the team, to pull the trigger and put the team into administration.

“It was nothing to do with my outstanding amounts. The only reason I have done it was to save the team and for the better future for the team.”

The highly unusual dynamic saw Perez continue to race for Force India, and he was kept on after the sale of the team to Lawrence Stroll’s Racing Point consortium – the first move made by the Canadian in acquiring the outfit which he has moulded in the years since into the now very stable and increasingly well-equipped Aston Martin team.

Perez explained that he had taken action to help protect 400 jobs at Force India, and he was open in saying that the move to put the team into administration didn’t help him on focusing on his driving as he needed to take into account “the bigger picture”.

The Mexican eventually lost his drive after 2020 but, in the final weeks with the team – with absolutely nothing to lose – he took an unlikely win at the Bahrain Grand Prix having been involved in a first-lap incident that saw him drop to the back of the pack.

It was an incredible display of strategy and speed, and it played a crucial role in talks with Red Bull, who were suitably convinced of his prowess to sign him for F1 2021.

Of course, the four years since have yielded comparatively little for Perez, whose highest points were when he showed his incredible team loyalty by fighting Lewis Hamilton to benefit Verstappen’s championship battle in 2021 – Turkey and Abu Dhabi being particular highlights in this regard.

But, in terms of success, Perez’s own personal highlight came just weeks before the slide began. At the 2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Perez proved untouchable, to the point where even the pursuing Verstappen couldn’t catch and pass him for the race win, and had to settle for second-best.

The very next race was the Miami Grand Prix, where Perez capitalised on a Verstappen penalty to take the pole position. But, try as he might, Perez lacked the pace to hold off Verstappen and came out second-best. Epitomising the expression ‘And I took that personally’, Verstappen climbed out of his car the victor and made a point of highlighting the number ‘1’ on his RB19. It was a devastating psychological blow, and Perez never recovered from it.

Is there a way back for Sergio Perez?

Given the finality of his father’s comments, it appears Perez might now consider F1 a closed chapter in his life. Given the mental barrage he’s been under for the past 18 months, wanting to take a step back from it all is hardly surprising.

But, six months down the line, might Perez be able to find a way back onto the grid? It’s entirely possible, as it would be too simplistic to say that, just because Perez was demonstrably slower than Verstappen at Red Bull, he has nothing to offer other teams.

Perez, like Fisichella, could be exactly the type of driver who would fit in well at Cadillac at the start of GM’s journey in F1. Hiring him and positioning him as the solid team lead for a squad with low expectations could be exactly the type of dynamic to bring out the best in Perez, who is very capable of being a solid and dependable driver in such an environment.

Added to that his popularity in Latin America, and the roster of big-money sponsors backing him, as well as his known amiability, likeability, and hard work ethic, and, suddenly, Perez is a very attractive proposition. If he’s so inclined, finding a racing seat elsewhere – such as in WEC or IMSA – to showcase a clear mind might be a way to keep him at the forefront of the conversation for Cadillac.

But, if this does prove to be the end for Perez in F1, let’s not remember him for his bad 2024, or think less of him for not being able to handle the pressure of a front-running Formula 1 team at every turn.

Remember him for the dignity he brought to the table in the face of unrelenting pressure, for the unwavering friendliness he gave to the media at all times – even when facing the most difficult questions – and for the gentle thoughtfulness he is known for having shown on a daily basis with his work colleagues.

Remember him for how he utilised his position upon becoming an F1 driver to immediately establish a foundation for impoverished and disadvantaged children in Mexico, and for his willingness to risk his own career to save the employees of Force India.

In a year when F1 has moved on from several established and successful members of the old guard, Perez’s presence as a driver will be missed – but might there be the chance for a swansong before the very end?