Perez and Hülkenberg unlikely to land Red Bull drive

Christian Horner has effectively ruled out Sergio Perez and Nico Hülkenberg from a 2021 drive with Red Bull.

Perez finds himself looking for a seat after Racing Point announced he would be leaving the team at the end of this season, to be replaced by Sebastian Vettel.

Hülkenberg, meanwhile, impressed for two races whilst standing in for Perez for the British and 70th Anniversary Grands Prix at Silverstone due to the Mexican being in quarantine after contracting the coronavirus.

Despite the calibre of the two drivers, Horner has made clear that Max Verstappen, Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat are all under contract to Red Bull.

Seemingly the only dilemma for Horner is where to place Albon and Gasly next season, with the preference being they will remain with their current teams.

"All the drivers are on multi-year contracts and it’s up to the team to take up its option on those drivers," said Horner.

"As far as Pierre is concerned, he’s doing a great job at AlphaTauri, he’s a good fit for them, they enjoy having him within the team and their aspirations of a team, as I say, have changed so they need an experienced, competitive driver.

"Our intention is absolutely to retain our current drivers. Alex is our preferred choice. Inevitably, you have to be aware of what the other options are out there but our absolute preference and likelihood is to retain the existing driver line-up that we currently have."

As to when a decision would be made regarding Albon and Gasly, Horner initially joked: "It will certainly be before Christmas!"

He then added: "Obviously all the drivers are under contract to Red Bull on multiple years, so there are trigger points at different times in their contracts but it will certainly be later into the autumn.

"Our intention is to retain Alex, he’s doing a good job, he just needs to build on the kind of performances he put in in Mugello and obviously continue that development."

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