Juan Pablo Montoya believes Sergio Perez can’t complain too much about his time at Red Bull, given the opportunities possible for him.
Sergio Perez recently spoke about his difficult final year at Red Bull, the difficulties in being teammate to Max Verstappen, and that “everything was a problem” whether he was faster or slower than the Dutch driver.
What did Sergio Perez say?
Perez returns to Formula 1 with Cadillac this year, having sat out 2025 after Red Bull paid him off to leave the team after a difficult ’24 season.
During an extensive conversation with the Oso Trava podcast, Perez claimed that then-team boss Christian Horner had held an early conversation with him in which the dynamic of the team was directly communicated.
“This project is for Max. It’s Red Bull,” Perez said.
“When I first sat down with Christian, he said to me, ‘Look, we’ll race with two cars, because we have to, but this project was created for Max. Max is our talent’.
“It’s like if Carlos Slim makes a team and I’m his driver, and you hire a Dutchman, then. It’s exactly the same thing.
“That’s what I was getting at, and I was very much aware.
“I told him, ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m on this team. I’m going to develop the car. I’m going to support the car. I’m going to support the team’.”
Perez went on to say that the upgrade direction of the 2022 car meant the RB18 became “uncontrollable” for him and that, later on in his tenure, his performances left Red Bull complaining about “practically everything”.
“Because you’re not concentrated, because you’re doing too many commercials, or because you’re busy with other things,” he said.
“At Red Bull, absolutely everything was a problem. If you were too quick, that would become a problem. Clearly, it created a very, very tense atmosphere at Red Bull.
“If I were faster than Max, it was always a problem. If I were slower than Max, it was also a problem. So, everything became a problem!”
Juan Pablo Montoya: Red Bull gave Sergio Perez a very high status
Speaking on the MontoyAS podcast, former Williams and McLaren F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya reflected on the situation and said Perez was fully aware of the dynamic of the team he was entering.
Perez first signed with Red Bull in late 2020, having lost his seat with the Racing Point squad for ’21. However, his first win in Formula 1 came in Bahrain at the end of that season and helped tip the scales in his favour to be chosen ahead of Nico Hulkenberg for the seat alongside Verstappen for ’21.
“Checo [Perez] himself says it in the interview, ‘I knew what I was getting into and at the time I didn’t really have any other choice’, because that was his option to stay in Formula 1,” Montoya said.
“Like it or not, Checo has six wins, five of which came with Red Bull.
“If you look at it as a Mexican, a fan of Checo, you’re going to say ‘Yes, but Red Bull was very unfair’.
“But as Checo says, he knew what he was getting into, and, unfair or not, he gave the country five wins; Red Bull gave him five wins. So how much can they complain?
“If you understand me, they can complain in the end because ultimately that car was unmanageable, but they had a lot of very good things there, and they gave him very good things.
“Honestly, when Checo was comfortable in the car, he did a very good job. I think one of the debates I saw a lot, which people also discussed a lot on social media, was that… if they were clear about who the first driver is, the car was designed for Max – that was always said – but, if all these things were happening and if the situation with Red Bull was no longer going so well, why renew with Red Bull? Because you want to win races.
“It’s like being told, you’re going to be McLaren’s number two, ‘you have to give everything to Lando’. There will be weeks when Lando crashes or something happens to him, and you can win races.
“Realistically, it’s not a decision. What are you going to do? Is that it, or are you going to go to Alpine? Look at 2025, I mean, would you rather be number two at Red Bull or McLaren, or number one at Alpine in 2025?”
Juan Pablo Montoya: Sergio Perez’s image completely changed at Red Bull
Just seven races after his maiden win in F1, the experienced Perez won his first race for Red Bull by taking victory at the 2021 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. With multiple other podium finishes and a disruptive drive in Abu Dhabi that earned him the colloquial title of the ‘Mexican Minister of Defence’ after helping Verstappen’s successful title quest, Perez’s career momentum had fully recovered by the end of 2021.
While that momentum did ebb away through the ground-effect regulations, Perez had been an initially strong and capable support for Verstappen.
This turnaround in his image, having come dangerously close to his career stuttering to a halt after 2020, was all down to Red Bull, according to Montoya.
“Obviously, people are going to complain and everything, but if you look at it from the outside, Red Bull really gave Checo a very high status. Especially outside of Mexico,” he said.
“Within Mexico, too, of course, because he won races and everything, but I think that before, many people didn’t value or appreciate his talent.
“How I saw Checo before he joined Red Bull, how I saw him afterwards with his victories and what he did at Red Bull and how he helped Max win the title in 2021, it’s a totally different image.
“If you ask yourself how many people would remember Checo’s time in Formula 1 in 2020, if he had ended his Formula 1 career at that point, how many people remember him after Red Bull? Well, obviously, Checo will be remembered much more. Totally.”
With Perez able to continue his career and rebuild to the point where his proven ability and experience has secured him a comeback with Cadillac in 2026, Montoya said it can be very easy to be quickly forgotten – a situation that didn’t happen to Perez due to his Red Bull tenure.
“Look at how sad Formula 1 is. No one even thinks about Yuki [Tsunoda] anymore. And it hasn’t even been a month since the last race. A little more than a month and a week,” he said.
“Now, Yuki isn’t even on anyone’s radar anymore. It happened with [Jack]Doohan at the time; people forgot about him as soon as they [Alpine] took him out.
“Nyck de Vries… how many have come and gone without pain or glory? Exactly. So, from that point of view, the reality of this sport is very complicated.
“One day you’re a hero, and the next you’re a zero, so when you’re a hero, you have to take advantage of it, and if you’re in a winning car, you have to try to win races and give yourself the best chance you can. And that’s it, that’s how it is.
“You have to work hard, and I think what will be different is what Checo’s fans expect this year, because nobody really knows, I don’t think anyone knows how competitive they’re going to be.”
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