The story of Sergio Perez‘s race weekends lately: Arrive at the circuit, tell the media he’s going to have a cleaner weekend than the last, get onto the track, commit the same mistakes, vow to come back stronger for the next race, repeat. And it’s a pattern that Red Bull wouldn’t want to hold on to for much longer. And given Red Bull‘s reputation of replacing drivers when they start underperforming, Perez’s seat’s safety has become a topic of conversation after practically every race weekend. So coming into the Hungarian GP this weekend, he aimed to perform better but couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start.

While discussing Checo’s recent form before Hungary, as quoted by f1maximaal.nl, former Red Bull engineer Daniel Drury said, “Checo is in the downward spiral that fits the second seat at Red Bull. He will have to do something special this weekend. Otherwise, Helmut Marko will kick him out before next season.” [Translated by Google] And what was that something special Checo did? In his first flying lap of the weekend, he crashed into the wall on the outside of Turn 5. Perez isn’t helping strengthen his case to see out his contract at Red Bull till 2024 by making such errors weekend after weekend. And Drury explained how things work with Helmut Marko.

He said, “At Red Bull, a two-year contract usually means you have a contract for this year and an option for next year. With Marko, you get a deal for several races, not for several seasons.” And it’s true. Ever since Daniel Ricciardo left Red Bull, no driver has retained that seat alongside Max Verstappen for more than two years. Checo is the first driver to do so, but with how he’s performing currently, his time could end sooner than expected.

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For now, though, he has to step up and—like Drury said—pull a special Checo performance out of the bag. After committing that rookie error in FP1, he owned up to his mistake and came back stronger in FP3.

Sergio Perez made amends to break his Qualifying Hiatus since Miami

After a disappointing Friday for the Mexican in his RB19, he needed a good run before qualifying to regain confidence. And with not a lot of conclusive data gathered yesterday, FP3 was the only time Red Bull and Checo could collect representative data for qualifying and the race. Checo made sure he got the most out of his car and (much to Red Bull’s liking) finished just 6 milliseconds behind Verstappen. But, unfortunately, his morning confidence and pace didn’t reflect too much in qualifying.

Compared to the five race weekends before Hungary, this was a big step forward for Checo as he reached Q3 for the first time since the Miami GP. And although he looked like he had the pace to qualify somewhere close to the top in Q3, he could only manage a P9 compared to his teammate’s P2. Needless to say, he has work to do during the race yet again this weekend.

Do you think there’s a chance Red Bull could terminate Sergio Perez’s contract before time?

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