Sergio Perez has laughed off rumours that he is set to retire from Formula One. The Mexican remains under pressure at Red Bull after a disappointing run of form, but is being defiant and has mocked suggestions that he will soon leave.
Reports have claimed that an announcement over Perez’s retirement is being planned ahead of October’s Mexican Grand Prix. The 34-year-old’s future has been the subject of persistent rumours over the past few years, despite him only signing a new two-year contract in June.
Perez has now channelled the Wolf of Wall Street’s Jordan Belfort to play down the speculation. He shared a famous clip from the film, in which Leonardo DiCaprio’s character bellows: “I’m not leaving! I’m not f****** leaving!”
The speech is met by rapturous applause, a response that Perez may hope will be replicated inside the Red Bull paddock if he does remain.
In his post on social media platform X, Perez included six laughing emojis, showing he has seen the funny side of the rumours. The six-time race winner will want those rumours to subside as he attempts to rekindle his best form, with Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen also suffering from a surprise dip in performance.
Perez finished a lowly 10th in Singapore last weekend, winning just one point from the Grand Prix. Red Bull have been overtaken by McLaren in the race for the World Constructors’ Championship, while Verstappen faces pressure from Lando Norris for the individual drivers’ title.
The driver’s future was placed into further doubt this week when Red Bull team principal Christian Horner admitted that Perez had been ‘under-delivering’. Horner was quizzed on why Verstappen’s colleague has been given more patience than the likes of Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon, who were both sacked.
“I mean we’ve given a great opportunity to so many youngsters over the period of time, many of who you’ve mentioned there,” Horner said.
“The Red Bull system, it does demand results and demand performance and of course, Max is delivering, Checo has been underdelivering this year. Last year he did a good job or a good enough job to finish second in the championship and be constructors’ champion.”
Perez has complained about the quality of his RB20 and feels those concerns are only being listened to now that Verstappen has started to struggle.
Asked if he felt he was now being listened to by Red Bull’s engineers, Perez responded: “In a way, yes. To be fair, some of the engineers after Monza came to me and apologised, in a way, because now it’s a lot clearer [what] the issues I was talking about [were].
“It was always the speculation around it and people saying the problem was I was not focused enough or other things. But at the end of the day, I’m just happy that we found out the problem and that we can focus on that and improve it.”
