‘Perfect victim’ Sergio Perez blasted for ‘nonsense’ Red Bull claims

Sergio Perez has been accused of playing the “perfect victim” after making a series of claims about his time as a Red Bull F1 driver.

After a four-year stint, Perez was dropped from Red Bull’s driver line-up due at the end of 2024 with two years still left on his contract.

Reflecting on this period during a recent podcast, the Mexican described being a teammate of Max Verstappen as “the worst job there is in Formula 1”, adding that “everything was a problem”.

Perez, who will make a full-time return to F1 in 2026 with the new Cadillac team, also claimed Red Bull’s car was increasingly developed to suit Verstappen.

According to respected F1 observer Peter Windsor, Perez is making excuses for his poor performances.

“I think he’s being a perfect victim, I don’t think there’s a grain of truth in it,” Windsor told the Cameron CC podcast.

“I think if you had Charles Leclerc in the other Red Bull in the last five or six years I think he would have been pretty successful. He might even have won a championship against Max. That’s not to say he’s as good as Max right now, but if you had a class driver in the other car, of course he’d be very near Max.

“The reality is they’ve never had a class driver alongside Max, apart from the brief period when Daniel Ricciardo was there. Red Bull are quite capable of producing two very competitive cars, as we saw in the Mark Webber-Sebastian Vettel days.

“So it’s all nonsense and it’s all Perez trying to justify not being as quick as Max and basically saying ‘if they had built the car around me I would have won four world championships and Max would have been nowhere. Is that what he’s trying to say? I don’t know. But I think he’s wrong there as well.”

Should Perez be grateful for Red Bull chance?

Perez started off as a strong second driver alongside Verstappen and helped Red Bull win back-to-back constructors’ world championships in 2022 and 2023. He finished fourth in the drivers’ standings in his debut season with the team in 2021, before improving to third in 2022, and second in 2023, racking up five grand prix wins in the process.

Things went badly wrong for Perez in 2024 as he slipped to eighth place in the championship, with his slump in form a contributing factor in Red Bull losing their grip on the constructors’ title. He was subsequently axed at the end of the campaign and was absent from the F1 grid in 2025.

Windsor ultimately believes Perez should be grateful for the opportunity he had at Red Bull.

“Well above his talent level probably he won grands prix, he should be saying ‘I just can’t believe how lucky I was to be driving for Red Bull when I did, I was so happy to be there, what a great team, I was there for the golden days with Jonathan Wheatley and Christian [Horner] and Adrian [Newey]’,” Windsor continued.

“Why is he not saying that? Saying thank you very much Red Bull for those grand prix wins. It’s the same old story. When he won a few races early on and all the Mexican press got excited about how he could win the championship and beat Max, and he believed it all!

"Of course the press are going to say that, because that’s what they do. But for Perez to believe it all, and he’s believing it all now I guess. It’s ridiculous.”