Ex-F1 driver David Coulthard says he is close to losing respect for Sergio Perez over how his Red Bull future has been handled.
The 34-year-old Mexican is expected to be dropped from Red Bull’s driver line-up for 2025 after a disappointing season, with an announcement set to come before Christmas.
Red Bull held a crunch meeting involving the team’s shareholders to discuss Perez’s future immediately after the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen claimed his fourth successive world championship with 437 points, while Perez could only manage 152 and finished a lowly eighth in the standings.
Perez’s woeful form and failure to turn things around played a major role in Red Bull slipping to third place in the constructors’ championship behind McLaren and Ferrari, and left his future hanging in the balance.
Despite this, Perez has repeatedly insisted that he will drive for Red Bull in 2025, citing the contract he has covering covering next season.
Speaking on the Formula For Success podcast, former Red Bull driver Coulthard was critical of the way the situation is being handled by Perez and his manager, Julian Jakobi.
“Checo is a very good human being, but it’s painful to watch the resistance to the facts, and I can only assume it’s a management play,” Coulthard said.
“Julian Jakobi is his manager – Julian we know and respect for many years; [he’s an] intelligent, good manager. But his job is to make sure the money is there.
“So I can only imagine it’s about trying to negotiate the biggest payoff possible to get him to go of his own accord, rather than basically say, ‘Okay, we’re paying you whatever we’d agreed to pay you for next year, but we’re not giving you a race car.’ Which could happen, but it would be such a shame.
“I would lose a little bit of respect for Julian and Checo.
“At the end of the day, the data doesn’t lie. If there’s a contract, then of course, a contract should be honoured by negotiation.
“But hopefully they can do that in an adult way, rather than, you know, you’ve hurt my feelings and I’m suing you.”
Transfer fee rumours ‘complete nonsense’
There have been rumours that Perez is demanding an excessive buy-out fee in the region of $20 million from Red Bull in order to vacate his seat early.
But Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko has insisted such speculation is “complete nonsense”.
“There’s a lot of speculation about this,” Marko wrote in his Speedweek column. “Including rumours about possible transfer fees, which are complete nonsense.”
On the timing of Red Bull’s decision, Marko added: “We will be announcing news on the driver pairing for next year in the next few days.”
Liam Lawson is the favourite to replace Perez at Red Bull next year.
