Red Bull’s Costly Gamble: Pérez’s 2024 Collapse Reviewed

Red Bull battled hard to salvage Pérez’s season after a strong start, but mounting struggles ultimately proved costly in 2024.

Christian Horner refuses to blame Sergio Pérez for his very poor 2024 season. The Red Bull team principal highlights that the Mexican driver had a strong start before collapsing and points out that it’s impossible to know how other drivers would have fared in the same situation.

“It’s always easy to look back in hindsight, and it’s impossible to know what someone else would have done in that car,” Horner told PlanetF1. “I mean, Sergio started the season very well. Second in Bahrain, second in Jeddah, and extremely quick in Japan, which is an ultimate driver’s circuit.”

“From Monte Carlo onwards, his season tailed off, and from that moment, we lost too many points. We won more races than any other team last year by a significant margin and secured as many pole positions as McLaren.”

“This is something we tried to understand, and we worked very hard with Sergio to address some of the issues he was facing. But it proved very costly in terms of points lost in the Constructors’ Championship.”

The Briton insists his team did everything possible to help Pérez during the 2024 season, but to no avail: “Look at what Sergio has done for us over the past four years. We really wanted to try to help him turn things around.”

“He finished second in the World Championship in 2023, won five races in our car, and played a key role in the Constructors’ Championships in 2022 and 2023. He also contributed to the Drivers’ title in 2021. So there was loyalty in trying to support Checo. But, you know, unfortunately, it didn’t materialize.”