On June 4th, 2024, Sergio Perez announced his extension with the Red Bull Team, saying, “I am really happy to commit my future to this great team. It is a challenge like no other racing for Oracle Red Bull Racing, both on track and off track.”. While it was historic on a few accounts, it has become worrisome on a lot more. For context, he has just scored 20 points in the last four races.

Hence, there was reasonable speculation that he was being sacked by the reigning champion team. However, Christian Horner announced yesterday that they are committed to continuing working with the Mexican. This raised many eyebrows, but I believe there is a very big reason why the team cannot let go of the 34-year-old driver. But first, let us take a look at why Checo sent the alarm bells ringing in the first place.

Why should Red Bull have sacked Sergio Perez?

Sergio Perez’s form had been depleting for two races before his contract extension was announced. The team thought this security would encourage him, but that hasn’t happened. It was believed that in the revised deal, Red Bull had the power to drop the Mexican driver if he found himself over 100 points behind teammate Max Verstappen at the time of the summer break. His weekend, Checo finished seventh after starting on the front row and the gap to Max ballooned to 146 at last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix. Everyone thought Red Bull would resort to their age-old technique of switching drivers mid-season to save their face.

The latest driver on their chopping block was Nyck de Vries, who was kicked out of their junior team after only 10 races last year. But before finding the right match for Max Verstappen, the team had a flurry of demotions and booting. Let us recall the recent ones. In 2016, the team demoted Daniil Kvyat to their sister team. After a stellar rookie season with Toro Rosso in 2015, Verstappen was promoted to Red Bull to replace Daniil Kvyat four races into 2016.

In 2017, Kvyat struggled to match the pace of Carlos Sainz in the other car, and the Russian was moved aside mid-season to make way for reigning GP2 champion Pierre Gasly. Two races later, Sainz moved to Renault, and Brendon Hartley was put in the car but was dropped at the end of 2018. With Daniel Ricciardo’s departure in 2018, Gasly was moved up the ranks and Alex Albon came in. However, looking at Gasly’s subpar performance as compared to Max, the team demoted him in the summer break of 2019. Eventually, Checo replaced Albon at the end of 2020. But all the drivers before Checo were dropped for far lesser crimes than him. But why is RB not sacking him?

The reason why Sergio Perez is Red Bull’s weakness

Let’s first look at some statistics. In 2022, U.S. census data revealed that California, Texas, and Arizona are three of the five states boasting the largest numbers of Hispanic-identifying residents. In states like Texas, people of Hispanic origin are the largest demographic group. According to 2023 data revealed by Bet MGM, Sergio Perez was the most searched-for driver on Google in many of the states that border Mexico: California, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Another aspect we need to understand is that Perez’s popularity also boasts a huge roster of sponsors. This was also aided by his close friendship with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. Perez has signed top-dollar deals with Mexican companies like Telmex, Kavak, Claro, and Telcel. Those deals still hold value because Perez still enjoys massive public admiration. Keeping this in mind, Red Bull sure would have a tilt towards the man who brings sponsors like the Mexican wireless telecommunications company Telcel, Disney, Mobil, Claro, Nescafé, and KitKat, especially in light of Verstappen’s $55 million-a-year contract. With a 500% hike in Mexican F1 viewership, the drinks company also sells a lot of cans and enjoys goodwill. To be honest, if they are paying Verstappen so much, they also need to maintain the cash liquidity to retain him when Toto Wolff and Mercedes are openly flirting with him.

Though reasons like an obedient number two and the non-threatening nature of Checo can also be the reason, the money he brings due to his popularity in the Americas is the biggest reason Checo has been retained by Milton Keynes.