Sergio Perez started the season strong, with four podium finishes in the first five races. However, recently, he has been in the spotlight mainly for negative reasons regarding his performance. The Mexican driver is now on an 11-race streak without finishing in the top three, his longest dry spell since joining Red Bull in 2021. 

Despite the issues that the RB20 has, Perez still should be able to finish behind his teammate and reigning champion Max Verstappen. Ironically, he only managed to do that last weekend during the Italian Grand Prix, when even Verstappen struggled and secured together only P6 and P8 for the team.

Mika Hakkinen, former F1 champion in years 1998 and 1999, admitted that he doesn't enjoy criticizing other drivers, but believes Perez has recently disappointed both himself and his team.

He opened up about the topic to Unibet International: 

"Formula 1 is a very cruel sport, and there are two drivers in a team who are naturally competing with each other before they start competing against others.”

"In this case, the gap between him [Perez] and Max has been increasing constantly. What that means is you don't get the data, you don't get the information from both cars to be able to develop the car as quickly as required.

"That has been a real downside for the development of the Red Bull team, and it's challenging.

"I try to avoid criticising but I just want to tell you the facts - you need two flat-out drivers for the team to be able to compare the data and [make] different adjustments [with] what they do aerodynamically or mechanically to the car.

"You need to constantly compare, and during a race weekend, the time is quite short. Just one car is not able to move the team forward. You need two cars, you need two drivers."

The 2024 season is Perez’s fourth season in Red Bull and fourteenth in Formula 1 overall. Throughout his career, he achieved a lot of exceptional results, including his victory from last place in the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix. However, he also had enough time to prove, that he could at least equal Verstappen’s results and be a valuable second driver for the team, which he managed in the beginning but his performance over-time started to descend until it got to this year’s season when Red Bull might lose the battle for the Constructor’s Championship. 

For the 2025 season, Perez has a valid contract with Red Bull, which was been renewed only in June this year, however, it’s only up to the team from Milton Keynes if they will decide to keep him, despite his disappointing results throughout the whole 2024 season. 

"Sergio has not been able to deliver this for the Red Bull team. It has been influencing the success, and this has been a very negative thing."

"Sergio Perez has been in Formula 1 for a long time. This is not the first year or second year. He has been there a long time,” highlighted Hakkinen.

"He has had the chance to study himself, to understand himself, what does he need to be the number one, and he has failed to do that.

"I don't want to say he doesn't have a talent to drive. But I think all the other parameters have not been able to support Sergio, to come in at a level where he needs to match Max Verstappen and deliver what the team is requiring him to do to be able to build a winning team."

Red Bull is now fully focused on fixing the issues with RB20, so they can fight back McLaren, who are the favorite ones to win the Constructor’s Championship title at this point.