Perez: Everything was a problem at Red Bull

Perez, who will drive for Cadillac in the 2026 Formula 1 season, raced for Red Bull from the 2021 to the 2024 seasons.

He finished a career-best second in the Drivers' Championship in 2023, but then he started to struggle in the 2024 season and was fired at the end of it to be replaced by Liam Lawson, who survived only two races in 2025 before being replaced by Yuki Tsunoda, who saw the season through but performed woefully.

It was clear that firing Perez was not the solution for Red Bull Racing, but that was the decision Christian Horner and Co. took at the time, and the rest is history.

Now, the Mexican driver is gearing up for his F1 comeback with Cadillac in 2026, where he will race alongside Valtteri Bottas.

But until then, and only after he has other stuff to talk about, Perez will still be asked about his days at Red Bull.

Speaking to the Cracks Podcast, he said: "We had the best team. Unfortunately, everything was destroyed.

"We had the team to have dominated the next ten years in F1, I believe, and unfortunately, everything came to an end.

"But I was in the best team," he added. "A complicated team, right? Because being Max’s teammate…

"Just being Max’s teammate is already very difficult, but being Max’s teammate at Red Bull is the worst job there is in Formula 1, by far.

"Everyone forgot, didn’t they? When I arrived at Red Bull, I started getting results and everything, and everyone forgot how difficult it was to be in that seat.

"I was very aware of what I was getting into. I arrived at Red Bull, and they put you up against one of the greatest drivers in history," Perez pointed out.

The six-time Grand Prix winner went on, revealing that he knew what he was getting into.

"This project is built for Max," he said. "When I first sat down with Christian, he told me: 'Look, we’re going to race with two cars because we have to race with two cars. But this project has been created for Max. Max is our talent.'

"It’s like if Carlos Slim [Perez' sponsor] builds a team and I’m his driver, right? And you hire a Dutch guy. So it’s the same thing.

"So that’s what I was stepping into, and I was very aware of it. I told him: 'It doesn’t matter. In this team I’m going to develop the car, I’m going to support the car, I’m going to support the team.'"

Perez then went further back to his early days when he seemed to be handling the first ground-effect car Red Bull built in 2022 better than Verstappen.

He recalled: "In 2022, when the car by mistake came out very heavy, we had a very heavy car with the weight distribution too far forward, right? So it was much, much more stable; it was always what I was looking for.

"So at that moment, I remember that in the simulator I was faster than Max, and I was already arriving at the race weekends thinking about winning the race, and everything came automatically.

"As a driver, when you don’t have to think about how to drive, about what the car is going to do, everything comes automatically.

"And then we had a car that maybe wasn’t so much in Max’s style, and in 2022 I started fighting for the championship with him… until the upgrades arrived.

"When the upgrades arrive, there is a very clear direction in which the team has to go, and that’s when I start to have problems," he claimed. "Because I no longer know what the car is going to do in the corner.

"I’m already thinking about not crashing, and then the crashes start, the accidents start. You don’t have 100% control.

"And then the same thing happens in 2023. The team builds a much more stable car for both drivers, but as soon as the upgrades arrive in 2023 and I start fighting for the championship with Max—he wins one race, I win another, he wins one, I win another, meaning that over four races he won two and I won two—so we were very evenly matched.

"And when we get to Barcelona, from fighting at the front, I go to being a second per lap slower. I no longer had control of the car.

"So then all this pressure starts. All this pressure, which was very hard because, well, the one at fault is the driver, right?

"Because you’re not focused, because you’re doing too many commercials, or because you’re involved in other things."

Perez then said that nothing he did or didn't do was pleasing enough for Red Bull Racing.

"[The team would complain about] everything," he said. "Practically everything. At Red Bull, everything was a problem.

"If I was very fast, it was a problem because it created a very tense atmosphere at Red Bull.

"If I was faster than Max, it was a problem. If I was slower than Max, it was a problem. So everything was a problem," Perez concluded.