Sergio Perez Hits Back At Red Bull Driver Meeting Claims

Red Bull driver Sergio Perez clarified that the summer break meeting within the team was entirely focused on improving performance, with no discussion about the drivers. Perez reaffirmed his commitment to the team, emphasizing that his focus is on the next ten races of the season.

Perez's performance slump following the Chinese Grand Prix significantly impacted his points tally, allowing McLaren to close the gap on Red Bull in the Constructors' Championship. Max Verstappen, almost single-handedly, led the team until the summer break.

With McLaren trailing by just 42 points, rumors of Perez being ousted were doing the rounds, with a decision that was to be made in a Red Bull meeting during the summer break. However, team principal Christian Horner announced after the meeting that Perez would continue racing for the team.

Perez however, revealed that the topic of discussion in the meeting was related to performance. Speaking to the media, he said:

“It was mainly pure speculation.

“I think the meeting had nothing to do with the drivers, it was all about the performance.

“I think I already said everything I had to regarding speculation, I’m here fully committed to the team.

“I have got a contract for the next two years and I’m fully committed to Red Bull to turn things around and, yeah, I’ve said everything I had to.”

The Mexican driver emphasized that the summer break was crucial for him and his team, which now understands what went wrong with the car's recent upgrades. He added:

“I basically went away and switched off.

“But always when you are in the summer break, the back of the mind is always in contact with the engineers and what’s going on.

“And it was, I would say, a very positive break for Red Bull. We were able to find a lot of stuff. I think at least we know where we are with the car right now.

“You know, there’s been an upgrade or two that probably took us in the wrong path.

“I think just looking back at it, right now we know exactly how the car is working, which is a very good thing, because I think it was not so clear in the last few races.

“Whether we can fix it and get back to the level we had earlier, that’s another question. But I think in that regard it’s very possible.”

While the RB20 F1 car remains extremely competitive, Perez said he could only extract maximum performance from it after improvements had been made. He said:

“Yeah, I think there’s some good circuits where I’ve had good races, but we’ve already been to circuits where I’ve had good races.

“I think the most important is we get myself in the window where I can extract the potential of the car, because definitely, I mean, it’s still a Red Bull and it’s a bloody fast car.

“But it’s just been tricky lately to extract the maximum. We’ve been quite hard on the tires. So yeah, I think there’s a lot of things to improve in the next races.”