Perez in CRYPTIC message over Red Bull contract

Red Bull star Sergio Perez has hinted that there were off-track reasons for his surprise contract extension this season.

The Mexican driver's struggles have carried over from the second half of the 2024 season, sitting more than 250 points behind his championship winning team-mate Max Verstappen.

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Perez has not achieved a podium in the sport since April, and has only amassed 13 points from his last seven events.

Red Bull chief Helmut Marko recently suggested that VCARB drivers Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda are embroiled in a shootout for Perez's seat, while rumours have linked the team with a mega-money swoop for Williams star Franco Colapinto.

Perez's defiant future response

Perez currently sits eighth in the drivers' championship, and is 251 points behind team-mate Max Verstappen, who has managed to claim championship success despite Red Bull's struggles in 2024.

Marko recently suggested that there was a deadline set for Perez's future, revealing that talks would take place between team and driver after the Abu Dhabi GP to finalise the lineups in both Red Bull teams.

Now, Perez has made an announcement about his future with the team, suggesting that his drivers' championship performance was not the only driving factor behind the team's decision to offer him a new contract earlier this year.

"At the end of the day the team has all the information," Perez told the media ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix weekend.

"There is so much that I can say here. At the end of the day the team has all the information and there’s a reason why we extended my contract during the year.

"The team has everything, you know, and we exactly know where we are, in terms of performance [and] in terms of issues that we’ve had.

"We are a team and we know exactly, internally, where everything stands so we’re working really hard as a team to come through and get back into a much better season than the one that we just had."

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