Any time Sergio Perez struggled during the 2022 and 2023 Formula 1 seasons, rumors emerged that Red Bull would be looking to move on from him and give Max Verstappen a new teammate, thus "upgrading" at the number two driver role.
It made sense, given Red Bull's cutthroat history, at that point most recently by demoting Pierre Gasly to AlphaTauri during the 2019 season and then dropping Alex Albon, who replaced Gasly, for Perez at the end of the 2020 season.
And every time, those rumors fizzled out, and Perez returned. When Perez signed an extension to remain with Red Bull through the 2026 season, even amid his mid-season 2024 struggles, more questions emerged, but the fact that his future was finally viewed as "secure" quieted those talks.
Until it didn't.
Perez continued to struggle. Fourth and fifth place finishes were suddenly becoming seventh and eighths or worse. Red Bull's constructor championship stranglehold was gone, and they could no longer even challenge for second; Verstappen became the first driver to win the world title for the third-place team since Nelson Piquet in 1983, and he still clinched with three races to go.
Perez could only finish eighth in the standings with just four podium finishes, with none in the season's final 19 races, compared to Verstappen's 14.
The pressure mounted on Red Bull, and they finally pulled the plug on the driver they had just extended for two years, confirming Liam Lawson as his replacement for 2025.
Even before the 2025 season began, Lawson found himself on the hot seat, and he lasted only two races with the team. Yuki Tsunoda replaced him, and he didn't do much better.
We've waxed poetic on Verstappen for years, and for good reason. Why stop now? Verstappen finished just two points behind McLaren's Lando Norris in the 2025 world championship battle after trailing him by 70 at the end of August; he turned a 104-point deficit to McLaren's Oscar Piastri into an 11-point advantage, despite again competing for the third-place constructor.
That same third-place constructor could only muster up 30 points from the second car all year. That literally would have made Red Bull the ninth (out of 10) teams in the constructor standings, even if you slightly up that average and double it to account for two cars.
In a combined 24 starts at sister team Racing Bulls, Tsunoda and Lawson even managed more than 30 points, 41 to be exact, to go along with teammate Isack Hadjar's 51, putting the team sixth in the constructor standings.
I'm not saying Red Bull were actually only the ninth fastest team, but even with Verstappen's success, they might very well not have been third. Yet at the same time, Perez surely could have done a heck of a lot better than Lawson and Tsunoda, because even at his worst, he literally did.
But again, why stop there?
Tsunoda was called upon to hold up Norris in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and suffice it to say it did not go well for anybody.
After giving a Kimi Raikkonen-esque message to the team on the radio that he knew what he was doing, he resorted to blatant blocking, moving three or four times and forcing Norris off the track, only to be overtaken anyway.
He was then confused as to why he was given a five-second penalty, though nobody else watching shared in that confusion.
Give him an E for effort, I guess.
Let's flash back to 2021 for a second.
Perez put on a legendary – and more importantly, 100& clean – defense on Lewis Hamilton, lap after lap after lap, as he aimed to hold up Verstappen's world championship rival.
Even on much older tires, and even after Hamilton actually passed him initially, Perez fought back, took advantage of DRS and the slipstream, and passed Hamilton back. And because it was technically for position, there was nothing wrong with anything he did. Hamilton finally got around him, but Perez had done his job, and he had done it well.
The time Hamilton lost because of the effort from the "Minister of Defense" turned out to be the single reason why he couldn't pit for new tires during the late safety car and remain ahead of Verstappen.
Because Hamilton stayed out to retain the lead, Verstappen pit for new tires, and on lap 58 of 58, he pulled off the move of his life into turn five to win the world championship.
And for as much as a certain contingent of fans still want to place the blame squarely on Michael Masi for Hamilton losing that world championship, the execution of that strategic masterclass is why Verstappen had a chance to win it. He took advantage.
Perez even weighed in on Twitter after Sunday's race.
Perhaps 🤣 https://t.co/LA9dhG7VgK
— Sergio Pérez (@SChecoPerez) December 7, 2025
Would Perez had defended Norris to the point where it actually would have affected the outcome of Verstappen's championship?
Probably not. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc might have been closer to third place than he was, but the simple matter of fact is that there weren't enough competitive cars to keep Norris outside of the top three, especially when Piastri likely would have dropped back to ensure Norris had the points to win the world championship.
Norris would have needed to drop from third to fifth, not fourth, and that was never on the cards.
But he surely would have put up a better effort than Tsunoda did, and he proved it in 2021. Tsunoda hardly affected Norris at all. He clearly could have held him up by backing him up at more fitting sections of the 16-turn, 3.281-mile (5.28-kilometer) road course, and he could have done so without nearly causing a massive collision that clearly violated every driving standard in the book.
Perhaps instead of "perhaps", Checo could have simply tweeted, "miss me yet?"
The 35-year-old Mexican driver is set to return to the grid in 2026 with a new arrival in Cadillac, alongside fellow former driver Valtteri Bottas. While the major battle in 2021 was between Verstappen and Hamilton, it was Bottas' performance over Perez which solidified Mercedes their eighth consecutive constructor title.
The Australian Grand Prix is scheduled to get the 2026 Formula 1 season underway on Sunday, March 8 from Albert Park Circuit.