How a small number is at the heart of Perez's Red Bull decline

Sergio Perez's F1 career appears to be over after 281 starts and six victories after being axed by Red Bull following a dismal 2024 season.

Perez's failure to routinely score big points was a major factor in Red Bull's slide from runaway constructors' champions in 2023 to third place behind McLaren and Ferrari in '24.

His 152 points were a measly 34.70% of Verstappen's 437, with Oscar Piastri (292) scoring 78.07% of Lando Norris's 374. Carlos Sainz (290) hauled 81.46% of Charles Leclerc's 356. 

Red Bull ultimately finished 77 points behind McLaren, so if Perez had scored these extra 77 points to finish on 229, he still would only claimed a smidge over half of Verstappen's tally, but Red Bull would have won the constructors' and Perez would likely still have a job for 2025.

In all, Perez contested 89 races for Red Bull from his debut at the 2021 Bahrain GP to his first-lap retirement at the 2024 Abu Dhabi GP.

The table below shows his average qualifying and race results per those four seasons and overall. 

Article continues below table. 

In the long-form data, there is a clear and distinct break by which Perez's Red Bull qualifying career can be split. 

Up to and including the 2023 Miami GP, across those 48 races, he had an average grid spot of 5.1. In the 41 races after this, it balloons to 10.05. 

Aside from a couple of DNFs, his race performances generally remain okay, but that stinging defeat to Verstappen in May 2023 in Miami, coupled with Red Bull developing the car away from Perez, and then not listening to his complaints, set him in a downward spiral. 

So with that in mind, RacingNews365 went back to look at the 89 races prior to Perez's Red Bull debut - stretching back to the 2016 British Grand Prix and crunched the numbers yet again. 

Article continues below. 

Although his numbers of a 10.7 qualifying average and 8.2 in these 89 races must be caveated with the fact he was in genuine midfield equipment at a time when seventh was about the best  any non-Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull driver could hope for, there is an interesting detail in the data.

At Red Bull, on average, he made up about 2.9 places per race from his grid spot. 

In the same period prior to joining, this comes in at 2.5 places made up per race from his grid spot. 

That is a difference of 0.4, which is remarkably similar and consistent from the Mexican racer in spells in midfield and then world-championship-winning equipment. 

Whilst consistency is good, with another caveat being applied in that the entire grid is far more competitive now than in his Force India/Red Bull days, with mistakes being punished far more easily, a bigger jump should be expected. 

Only gaining 0.4 places per race, given the competitive state of the Red Bull vs the Force India/Racing Points, is alarming, especially when Verstappen's adeptness at carving through traffic after a poor qualifying is factored in. 

At the very core of Perez's time at Red Bull was that he was an effective stop-gap, a fundamentally midfield-level driver plucked by a big team to be the square peg in the massive driver-shaped round-hole mess Red Bull had found itself in at the end of 2020.

Alex Albon was deemed not good enough, Pierre Gasly was not coming back, Danill Kvyat had been discarded and Red Bull was left scrambling for a replacement. 

It took a gamble on Perez, and for a while, it worked, but eventually, the luck ran out.