Perez's Retirement LEAKED by inside source!

Alright guys, welcome back to Formula 1 News. Massive rumours emerging today that Red Bull have informed Sergio Pérez over the last couple of weeks that they will not be bringing him back for 2024 despite the contract that is currently in place. That means Pérez has looked at other opportunities around the grid, found none that make any sense and made the decision to retire from Formula 1 and apparently this is going to be confirmed during the Mexican Grand Prix weekend. Is this actually true? Is there anything behind this? Does it make an awful lot of sense given the circumstances? Quite possibly, yes. Very much intrigued to your thoughts in the comments below. Hit the like button if you enjoy. Subscribe if you're new as always. I'd greatly appreciate it. Plenty to get on with today. Firstly, Mr. Bernie Eccleston, former top guy at Formula 1, was found guilty today, actually pled guilty to a £400 million worth of fraud. He's going to be 93 later this month. His sentence is going to be 17 months in jail but it's suspended for two years so he's at it again and I'm sure there'll be more twists and turns in this one. There was also this from Andretti. They have been confirmed by the FIA as a valid entrant as the 11th Formula 1 team. Whether Formula 1 and the teams agree to that, that's going to be a massive ongoing drama for many months to come. Rumour is though from AMUS that their deal with Renault Alpine for their engine supply has effectively fallen through. The deal expired in March of this year and apparently Alpine aren't really particularly willing to begin new negotiations. I don't think this will massively affect Andretti's chances because if they do get confirmed, like someone's got a supply of an engine, that's how the regulations go, and they might honestly be better off not getting the Alpine engine because the Renault PU is definitely the weakest on the grid at the moment. Maybe that won't be the case going into 2026 but it could well be. So let's talk about this Sergio Pérez situation. There is no doubt the pressure on Pérez has been mounting severely. We mentioned the other day that Helmut Marko had said that because McLaren are looking really strong and Mercedes and Ferrari and even Aston Martin, because all these teams should continue to put the pressure on Verstappen and Red Bull, they can't afford to be 25 or so, I think it's about 30 points behind Red Bull over the last three or four races compared to McLaren because Pérez simply isn't scoring any points, the McLaren guys are. They can't afford this golfing performance that Pérez has been suffering with really since race five to six into the season. And the fact of the matter is Red Bull have five drivers in their system. They've got Verstappen, they've got Ricciardo, they've got Lawson and they've got Snowder and they've got Pérez, of course. So right now, yes, we know that Snowder and Ricciardo have been confirmed at AlphaTauri and Lawson is the reserve. There's been big rumours lately that they're very willing to kick Pérez out even mid-season next year to bring in Ricciardo instead. And if that's what they're thinking about now, it makes it so unlikely to me that they're actually going to commit to Pérez as the option for 2024, despite the fact that there's a contract there. Contracts don't mean much if they want to terminate them and that is probably what's going to be happening here, according to the latest rumours. And for the Red Bull program, it probably makes sense to do this and get rid of Pérez at the moment. I mean, let's not forget, they kicked Nick de Vries out mid-season, so it's not like Red Bull aren't ruthless. They're not Williams and they're giving Sargent a lot of time, which is commendable, but we know how Red Bull operate. It would be crazy, really, to think that they kicked de Vries out mid-season for underperforming, but nothing outrageously bad, whereas Pérez can have a horrible season, really, in the last several races and still survive at Red Bull. How ruthless they are doesn't seem likely to me. And this gap, this discrepancy, the fact that if Hamilton didn't crash in Qatar, he really should have closed up within like 15, 20 points of Pérez. And even then, despite the fact that Hamilton crashed, he still gained points on Pérez over the course of the weekends. I don't know where you guys think this started for Pérez. I would say a big one was Miami when Verstappen came from P9 to beat him. That seemed like a bit of a dagger. The car went away from Pérez. The confidence was starting to get lost in the car, especially after the crash at Monaco. Tried to overcompensate, and this ended up with him regressing worse and worse, to such an extent that we now get talks that Pérez and Verstappen is kind of like Alonso and Stroll, which is not the prettiest comparison. But over the last few races, I guess you can't really say that it's entirely untrue. And even Helmut Marko is saying that, yep, Pérez is in a crisis. He's got to do better now. We're going to try and help him improve. But that doesn't sound like the words of someone in charge over there at Red Bull that is massively confident Pérez is going to be the man to lead them to the next step. We can even look at the performances this season. It's not been pretty, given the strength of that car. Yes, part of the reason why Red Bull are dominating is Verstappen. Verstappen's an epic driver, and what he gets out of that car week in, week out is pretty much mesmerizing. But there's no doubt that his teammates should be closer to him. If you put Hamilton, you put Alonso, you put Norris, you probably put others in that Red Bull. They would be closer to max, and Red Bull would be absolutely crushing it in the constructors more than they already are. The fact that Verstappen has 16 podiums, Pérez has eight, barely more than Alonso with seven, and Stroll has zero by the way, but is pretty bad. And if you look at his recent results, we did see this the other day, but just to break it down, after the two wins in Saudi and Azerbaijan, since then it's been 4th, 6th, 3rd, 6th, 3rd, 2nd, 4th, 2nd, and then 8th, not even classified after retiring twice, and then 10th in Qatar, and a DNF in the sprint. The last few races especially have been terrible, and apparently he was informed that his contract is going to be terminated during the Japanese Grand Prix weekend, which might explain why the last couple of races have been even worse than has typically been the case. Even in Qatar, right, I mean these were the power rankings, the power rankings are never that good as far as I'm concerned. Russell's down here as 6th with a 7.8 despite having a great qualifying, great sprint really, Russell, given the circumstances, and phenomenal recovery in the race after an incident that wasn't really his fault, he only gets a 7.8, probably should have been higher. Norris, despite kind of bottling qualifying as far as I'm concerned, still great drive from Norris in the race, but he gets an 8.4. What I'm trying to suggest here is that car bias is massive in these power rankings, we can see that with the Alfa Romeo guys. Bottas and Joe did a great job this weekend, both scored points, very impressive stuff, but you know the Alfa Romeo was actually a pretty good car this weekend, it balanced was pretty good, they got the most out of it for sure, but let's say the Alfa Romeo this weekend was atrocious to drive and Bottas got 15th, that could have been the performance of his career on the car that he had, in the machinery that he was driving, but it will never get recognised in the power rankings. So there's always car bias, is what I'm saying, in all of these rankings, I don't really think you can avoid it, but Perez is nowhere to be found, right, is what I'm getting across, and he's usually nowhere to be found week in and week out. Then we get to this rumour that emerged on Reddit earlier today, and the amount of detail here makes me believe this is pretty credible, you've got to take this with a grain of salt, but I've talked about this for a few weeks now, that I think it's a very likely possibility that Perez gets kicked and then retires, I've mentioned this a few weeks ago as a likely outcome, because let's say Perez was fired by Red Bull, is there another team he can join, is there another team that wants him, or it makes sense for him to join, and if you're Perez, do you want to join another team, you've been in Formula One for well over a decade, maybe it's just time to go on a season where you've won the constructors, you've won a couple of races, it would probably be a pretty good send-off in theory, despite the massive, underwhelming second half of the season from him. This is what the Reddit post says from an account called chidi-annakendrick, so as I say, grain of salt, but read through it and make your own opinion up on the matter. Context, this wasn't an actual dinner party, but it's easy to put that for the title. A few days ago, several people were testing some race cars at a local track, this is over in Mexico. After the day the track day was over, this guy's group joined our group and we all went to dinner together before getting back to the hotel. I don't know this guy personally, I met him at the track that day, but heard of him before, he's a well-known racing figure in Mexico, maybe you guys can do some investigative journalism and try and figure out who it might be. It was also known that he was one of the top guys in a scooter at Telmex. Now, they are a racing company over there in Mexico that is involved in many racing series out there and also involved in the young prospects of many young Mexican drivers. Perez was involved with Telmex way back in the day, we're talking about 2004, stuff like this, when he was just coming up in the first place, he was involved with these guys and they helped his progression and it's a big thing out there in Mexico. So and even today I think they still have a pretty big relationship and of course Perez brings big sponsor revenue as the jewel of Mexico I guess that he has been. So yeah, he was working as a high-ranking official for Moskuderia Telmex, directly linked to international sponsorship deals, aka Checo Perez and other motorsports people up until 2022. Here's what he said, Red Bull have told Sergio they will not keep him on for 2024, breaking the existing contracts. I don't think this should be a massive surprise to anyone given Perez's performances and Red Bull's the way they typically handle these things. Apparently, this decision was communicated during the week of the Japanese Grand Prix which, as Chidi Anna Kendrick says, might be one of the explanations behind a couple of tragic weekends since then. Checo's team therefore immediately started looking around and talking to people but there's two issues. First of all, there's no seats available, barely any teams are changing their drivers, there's maybe two options, one of which is Williams, they do have a seat available for Sargent possibly which is interesting but does Perez want to go to Williams? I don't think so and to be honest if he did go there would Albon beat him? Probably yes. He's not the driver that he used to be and that's another reason why teams aren't going in for him at the moment. There was also the mention of Stroll's place at Aston Martin, I think everyone kind of knows that Stroll, I don't know, he doesn't seem like he's as motivated as he has been before or as other drivers on the grid are and maybe there's a belief there, especially if Lawrence Stroll does sell the team to the Saudis as is a rumour going around, that Stroll's seat might become available quite quickly but let's even say that's not the case. The last few months haven't been great to Perez's reputation as is, he's gone from being a potential challenge to Verstappen at early doors despite the fact that I still don't know if he's really ever beaten Verstappen without some other, you know, without a safety car or some, you know, Verstappen qualifying out of position or something like that. I know that he did kind of beat Verstappen in a straight fight towards the end of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix but he still did benefit from the early safety car there giving him the lead so, you know, of course 2021 he did a great job defending for Max, tyre whisperer, Mexican Minister of Defence, all this stuff but when he was under pressure to potentially fight for a championship, completely collapsed and other teams aren't willing really to put him in one of their cars which makes sense and given the fact that there hasn't really been any driver changes I get why this is happening. So as a result, and we'll talk about who might replace Perez in a second here, Perez and his family, he's just had his fourth child I believe as well, have come to the decision that it's time to end his career. The announcement will apparently be made during the Mexican Grand Prix weekend in three weeks time and that will be it. So apparently the organisation in Mexico probably already know about this and are going to prepare some sort of farewell celebration and that's basically what was said. So yeah, this person could have made it all up on the spot, he could have, but given his position and also the fact that a lot of this stuff sounds very likely, even if this isn't credible, there's definitely a world in which this happens, right? I mean it just makes a lot of sense. So at the end of the day it's, it's trust me bro, you know, there's nothing crazy, there's no proof, there's no screenshots or anything, it's merely a post on Reddit that we either take the word for it or we decide not to. But just to have a look at this quote again, and I mentioned this two days ago now from Howard Marko, where Gerhard Berger had said that Perez should just leave Red Bull. It's best for Perez just to call it a day and retire, don't get beaten up by Max for another season, go for another team if you can, or just call it a day in Formula One. If Perez calls it a day, he'll have had a very respectable career over well over a decade and, you know, massive. Mexico have been super proud of him, he's won championships with Red Bull constructors championships a couple of years in a row, he's, you know, won races with them as well for the last couple of seasons. He could get out of here before his reputation gets completely annihilated, as it might over the next year if he stays at Red Bull and they probably don't want him anyway, and even if he goes to another team, it might not work out well for him there either. And Marko responded to Berger's opinion that he should retire, basically, and said, you don't want to hear an answer from me on that just before the Mexican Grand Prix. When I initially read this, I read it as, oh, Marko basically saying, yeah, he agrees with Berger, but he's not going to say it, otherwise the Mexicans will scrutinize me or, you know, whatever, I'll get crucified by the Mexican audience. But maybe what he's actually saying is, if this is to be believed, that, um, yeah, I'm not going to answer that until Mexico, at which point he would have announced his retirement and, um, then my answer will be, you know, evident, because Perez has decided to do it himself. That might be one way to look at this. Of course, the other side of the coin is, who do they get instead? I've been confident for, I said earlier in the season, I was 50-50 they would keep Perez for next year, despite the fact that he had a contract, I wasn't convinced they would do it, and over the last couple of races, that in my head has gone from 50-60 to 75-80% that they'll get rid of him. So I think it's very likely that they will. Whether what has just been said is true, that he's going to retire, that's, of course, another question. But who do they get instead, if this is going to be the case? Marko, as well, has just mentioned that Fernando Alonso is the only one, or one of the only ones, that could get close to Verstappen on the grid. Man, would I love to see Alonso just for one year or two or something in that Red Bull alongside Max, that would be fireworks. I know that lots of people would want to see it. There's a couple of other names that are worth kind of pointing out as well here, and I definitely think it's worth talking about these two guys, but also Lano Norris. Let's not forget, it wasn't long ago that Nico Rosberg said that he hears that Lano Norris is already on the move for next season. Where could that be? Well, the rumour was he's going to Red Bull. We don't have any updates from McLaren on that, oh yeah, they've locked down, or they've locked down Norris to a longer-term deal or anything, like they have to be Astri. Yes, Norris is still there for two more years on his contract, but we know that contracts don't mean that much in the grand scheme of things. But the main man has got to be Daniel Ricciardo. I know that some people would say I'll put Lawson in the car, I just don't see Red Bull wanting to do that again. We know what happened to Albon, we know what happened to Gasly, it's probably better for Lawson to spend some time in the AlphaTauri, or whatever that's going to be called next season. The most sensible thing to do, probably, is to get Danny Rick in the car. He's there, it's an option, it makes a lot of sense. Partnering out with Verstappen again, should be a better counterpart to Verstappen, the way he likes the car. He's fared reasonably well since he came back this season in the AlphaTauri, his driving style fits the way the Red Bull tends to operate much better than it did, let's say, when he was at McLaren. Is that really a good decision for both parties? You guys can debate that, but I think it's the most likely outcome. Could they get Alonso? Maybe. I mean, as I say, I'd love to see it, but I think it's probably more likely they would get Norris than they would get Alonso, both of which are under contract, but I think that there's possibly a way they could work around that if they were really willing to. So, yeah, that's where we're going to leave it for today. Very much intrigued to your thoughts in the comment section below. Do you think there's anything to this? Does it make a lot of sense? I think yes, and if they were to make this decision and Perez-Wolster confirm it in Mexico in about three weeks' time, which also makes quite a lot of sense, who do they get instead? Is it going to be Danny Rick to Red Bull, and therefore Snoda and Lawson in the AlphaTauri, or could they pull another very interesting move in what's, let's be honest, been a relatively lacklustre, silly season? Not really many driver changes, if any at all. We might finish the season with a bit of a bang on this one, which might not be a massive surprise. Hit the like button if you enjoyed, subscribe if you're new, take care, and I'll see you next time.