Pink Bull’s motorsport advisor Helmut Marko has blasted Sergio Perez after he “fully collapsed” within the Method 1 Belgian Grand Prix.
Pink Bull is ready for talks on Monday to evaluate its driver line-up for 2025, with Perez below menace of shedding his seat with the world champions.
The 34-year-old has been in wretched kind and went from second on the grid at Spa-Francorchamps to complete eighth (promoted to seventh after George Russell’s disqualification). He was additionally comfortably overwhelmed by his Pink Bull team-mate Max Verstappen, regardless of the Dutchman having a 10-place grid penalty for an engine change that meant he began eleventh.
Marko informed Sky Germany: “Sergio had the chance to take a very good outcome from second place. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. Particularly within the final stint, he fully collapsed, the place he set 1m48s lap occasions.
“What seemed so constructive in qualifying sadly did not materialise within the race.”
When requested about Monday’s assembly to evaluate their driver line-ups throughout Pink Bull and sister crew RB, Marko added: “For us, the scenario is such that we are going to additionally undergo the general scenario for 2025. We now have various drivers and we’ve an idea.
“However in fact each result’s [important] for Sergio, and eighth place from second on the grid is actually not what we anticipated.”
Sergio Perez, Pink Bull Racing RB20
Photograph by: Erik Junius
Perez is and not using a win since April 2023, coming on the Azerbaijan GP, and Pink Bull had supplied him a two-year extension earlier within the season in an try to show his performances round.
Pink Bull felt that in doing so it might free the strain on Perez to allow him to ship on observe, however the anticipated outcomes haven’t materialised.
It implies that Daniel Ricciardo, Liam Lawson or Yuki Tsunoda are in line to exchange him if Pink Bull wish to shake up its driver line-up, though it isn’t but identified if the change would occur mid-season as Method 1 groups head for the summer season break.
In the meantime, Perez blamed an absence of energy on the straights, visitors, tyres, technique and even the steadiness of the automotive for his poor efficiency. He did pit late on to report a morale-boosting quickest lap of the race on a brand new set of soppy tyres.
Nonetheless, he’s defiant that he’ll nonetheless be driving for Pink Bull on the Dutch Grand Prix after the summer season break and says he is not going to reply any extra questions on his future.
“It was a really disappointing race,” Perez stated. “It began nicely, I used to be simply struggling loads on the straights. I do not know what was occurring, however I needed to save battery early on within the first couple of laps, and I used to be simply very weak on the straights, and as soon as I managed to clear it, cost the pack a bit, I used to be staying there.
Sergio Perez, Pink Bull Racing RB20
Photograph by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Pictures
“However then the second stint, leaping onto the medium tyre with all of the visitors behind, it simply made it actually, actually tough. Very tough.
“We did fairly a brief stint as nicely, so we have been simply out of sync. I feel we have been simply not good with tyres at present. Steadiness wasn’t there as nicely, so loads of issues to analyse on our facet.
“On Saturday I had a very good qualifying, a very good day. It would not change something. I feel we’ve an excessive amount of occurring within the crew and a whole lot of issues that we’ve to give attention to, and we can’t waste any power with all this hypothesis.
“That is the final time I’ll converse concerning the future, so simply to make it clear for everybody, I can’t be talking anymore. I can’t reply any extra questions concerning the future.”
Further reporting by Markus Luettgens and Filip Cleeren
