09/04/2024
NEWS STORY
"He just needs to keep doing what he's doing," says Red Bull boss of Sergio Perez, as speculation over 2025 driver market continues.
Lewis Hamilton's shock move to Ferrari already guaranteed that this year's edition of 'who goes where' would be particularly exciting - especially when the line up in Bahrain was exactly the same as it had been a few months earlier in Abu Dhabi.
But then came the Horner saga and the possibility of a vacancy at Red Bull also.
Of course, even before he'd claimed his fourth pole of the season and third win, nobody really bought into the 'Max to Mercedes' or 'Max to Aston Martin' nonsense, but there remained the question mark over the second seat at Red Bull.
Though Sergio Perez finally got his act together and helped his team to its first ever 1-2 in the championship last year, the Mexican's form over the course of the '23 season had been erratic, and it was clear that the Austrian outfit would not tolerate more of the same.
Other than a blip in Bahrain, his qualifying form this season has been better, and on Saturday he gave his teammate a run for his money, while on Sundays he has claimed three seconds, including a strong drive in Japan.
Consequently, Christian Horner insists that the major factor in whether Perez retains his seat for a fifth season is the Mexican himself.
"His confidence is high, he's very focused on the job at hand, and he's comfortable in the team," said the Briton at race end on Sunday. "He knows he's out of contract for next year, and it's his seat to lose, he's very popular in the team, and he's started the season in the best possible way.
"He just needs to keep doing what he's doing," he added.
This weekend Perez has been particularly feisty, missing out on pole by just 0.066s, and having to recover after being undercut by Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc switching to a one-stop strategy.
Dropping to sixth after his first stop, the Mexican had to make some bold moves in his bid to get back to the front including successive passes in the notorious 130R on the Mercedes pair.
"There were a couple of moments where, I must admit, I had my eyes shut as he went into 130R," said Horner. "'Do you need to do it there? Can't you wait until the straight?' He didn't look like he had three kids when he made that move!"
Despite the previous speculation over Verstappen's departure that particular little story has gone quiet of late while (F2 star) Kimi Antonelli is one of several drivers linked with Mercedes, along with Carlos Sainz.
"The whole driver market seems to be very early this year," said Horner. "Everybody seems to be rushing around and we're only four races into the year.
"We're not in a huge rush," he added, "and obviously there's a significant amount of interest in our cars, as you would expect, but Checo has the priority and it's going to be a few more races yet before we start to think about next year."
"Last year, Japan in particular was Sergio's worst race," Helmut Marko subsequently told Sky Germany. "Everything went wrong then, so I think it's particularly satisfying for him.
"You can see he can do it," he added. "But perhaps it also plays a role that next year's contracts are at stake, this year much earlier than usual. That also seems to be very motivating."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Suzuka here.