It’s not too difficult to read between those words the concern that if the chasing teams are closer to Red Bull next year, Perez’s current level of performance relative to Hamilton, Russell, Leclerc, Sainz, Norris and Piastri just won’t cut it. Furthermore, contracts are only the starting points for negotiation if a team wants out of its commitment to a driver or vice-versa. Daniel Ricciardo had a contract with McLaren running to the end of this year, after all, with no contractual options on the team’s side. Yet he’s not there.
Ironically, it could be Ricciardo who would be set to benefit if, say, Red Bull informs Perez it wishes to negotiate out of their contract but to do it nicely would allow Perez to announce his retirement. That way, publicly at least, he won’t have been dropped, he’d have simply taken the decision to stop after a long and honourable career. He’d have seen this season as his last opportunity to fight for the world championship – which he was doing for the first five races – but now can devote his time fully to his growing family.
It’s difficult to imagine Perez being much in demand elsewhere on the F1 grid on current form if Red Bull were to not continue with him. It’s difficult also to imagine Perez having the desire to run for a team towards the back of the grid after so long in F1. As he said earlier this year, “If I didn’t think I could win the world championship, I wouldn’t be here away so much from my family.” An honourable retirement would be a neat resolution surely?