Sergio Perez has reflected on his turbulent final season with Red Bull Racing, describing the RB20 as at times "undriveable".
The Mexican endured a campaign to forget in 2024, slipping to eighth in the championship standings before being dropped by the team at the end of the year.
His dismissal came despite teammate Max Verstappen winning a fourth consecutive drivers’ title in the very same car, further underlining Perez’s difficulties.
Perez has suggested that Red Bull’s design philosophy heavily favours Verstappen’s driving style, leaving other drivers struggling to extract consistent performance. He pointed to the challenges faced by his successors as evidence.
Liam Lawson, who initially replaced him, endured only a short stint before being rotated out, while Yuki Tsunoda also found the car hard to handle and failed to make an impact.
“It’s just the whole dynamics of the team,” he said. “Obviously, they have a unique talent over there with Max. It’s very difficult for the second driver that is there to basically adapt to the car.
“It’s a very unique car, very unique driving style that I managed, I’d say, to survive for many years.
“But it’s difficult and it’s the way it works, you know, and you’ve seen it with great drivers just before my time or even after my time.
“I think Yuki and Liam, they’ve scored like five points or something like that.
“So it is very, very difficult, very tricky. And they’re fantastic drivers, you know, but it’s just the way it is to drive it. It’s just a very unique driving style.
“Sometimes I could cope with it, I could adapt to it, but as soon as there was a variable with the rain, with the wind or something, it just became undriveable.
“And then you start making mistakes one after the other, you are losing confidence – but mentally I was super strong and that’s why I survived there for so long, because I did have a lot of pressure and a lot of you guys [the media] were onto me.
“And now you realise the job I’ve done in that car and that team.”
