Perez sinks further at his home race: will he see out the F1 season?

Alonso has now entered 400 races, but Aston Martin was celebrating his 400th start, and he technically hasn’t started 400. One should count in my view — starting the original 2001 Belgian Grand Prix, retiring early on before the race was red-flagged, declared null and void, and a restart held – but in Indianapolis 2005 and Sochi in 2017 he never took the start.

Both those occasions saw Alonso begin the formation lap but fail to return to the grid and therefore not take the start, so after Mexico City he’s on either 397 or 398 depending on your stance. But either way, Mexico was not his 400th start, and an early retirement from brake issues was hardly a fitting way to mark it.

Maybe just for posterity, whether it’s Las Vegas or Qatar that he actually hits that hugely impressive number, Alonso should simply be allowed to pick the best result out of the three. This was not exactly the weekend that record deserved.

McLaren’s hiding to nothing

The McLaren petition for a right of review into the penalty given to Lando Norris in Austin was not exactly a surprise, but the approach to it perhaps was.

The drivers had already said they would be discussing racing rules in Mexico, but quite often such a move from a team is with the intention of highlighting inconsistency or an issue with the rules, if not to overturn the actual decision itself.

McLaren, however, simply appeared to state that the stewards’ interpretation of the situation was wrong, and by pointing to the decision document as being proof of the error, felt that was enough evidence to overturn it. But in essence, McLaren said ‘Our opinion is different to your opinion, so change it’.

All the team could say was it felt the stewards’ decision was wrong, and unsurprisingly the request was dismissed as “unsustainable” because it only used the decision as the key element required to allow a review.

The strange part was McLaren’s reaction.

“We disagree with the interpretation that an FIA document, which makes a competitor aware of an objective, measurable and provable error in the decision made by the stewards, cannot be an admissible ‘element’ which meets all four criteria set by the ISC, as specified in Article 14.3,” the team said.

“We will continue to work closely with the FIA to further understand how teams can constructively challenge decisions that lead to an incorrect classification of the race.”

McLaren actually had data – that it claims proved that Norris had already completed an overtake on Verstappen before braking for Turn 12 because he had pulled fully ahead – but it’s being using in a completely subjective and immeasurable manner because there is no rule about when an overtake counts as being completed. So it can’t say that was “an objective, measurable and provable error” when there’s nothing to prove it against.

Showing evidence that did prove that against regulations or guidelines would have given McLaren a much better chance of using the decision itself to gain a review, but the petition still largely amounted to a matter of opinion as the rules are currently written.

I don’t think McLaren is wrong in feeling the way that situation played out is incorrect and needs addressing in future – including defining when an overtaking move has been completed – but it failed to use the hearing to clearly make that point, and was always going to fail to get it overturned.

Pressure on Checo

It has not been a good 2024 on the whole for Sergio Perez, and it feels increasingly like it could be a costly one for his career. Heading into this weekend in Mexico City, he had scored 47 points in the past 13 races, or an average of just 3.6 points per event over that time.

Granted, Baku should have upped that statistic with a top four result ahead of Max Verstappen, but it’s simply not a good enough return in a car that has still had the potential for three victories, two sprint wins and four further podiums during that spell.

Such is the incredible support Perez receives in Mexico, there was certainly a desire to see him perform well in front of his adoring fans, but even before he qualified 18th and finished 17th there was surprise from some quarters of Red Bull that the media hadn’t been questioning his position more intensely.

And the reality is, if Red Bull was serious about winning the constructors’ championship it would have dropped Perez mid-season. It was clearly slipping away – admittedly in a tough car to drive – and sometimes it’s simply a case of the partnership no longer working. Perez would not be the first driver, nor the last, to simply need a fresh start.

But by sticking with him apparently regardless of results, Red Bull created indifference around that seat.

Helmut Marko suggested Perez isn’t safe if his form doesn’t pick up, but he has remained in place for much of this year after signing a two-year contract extension before the summer. It would make little sense after all that to drop him for the final triple header, although Christian Horner refusing to confirm he would see out the season was telling.

Whether he is still alongside Verstappen in 2025 though, is another matter entirely. That the instigation of questions has almost been welcomed by Red Bull suggests patience has run out, although Liam Lawson’s incidents with Perez in Mexico City could also have an impact on his chances of a rapid promotion.

The stats now make for even worse reading after a scoreless race in Mexico, and with Red Bull down to third in the constructors’ standings, the damage has been done on multiple fronts.

Pato O’Ward’s dream scenario

Should Perez drop off the grid it would be a huge blow to the Mexican market, but this is a race that has had strong crowds regardless of the car he has been in, and maintains that it will do so moving forward whatever happens with his situation.

That’s not to say there couldn’t be a future candidate though in the coming years, and if Pato O’Ward is able to achieve his dream scenario then he clearly has huge support too. The McLaren reserve was overwhelmed by the turnout at a nearby shopping mall when he was mobbed at a pre-race event, and then similarly received significant attention during and after his FP1 outing.

O’Ward has been one of the most exciting drivers to watch in IndyCar for some time and has been so close to winning the Indy 500 on multiple occasions, so he wants to get that title on his CV along with an IndyCar championship. Not that he’d turn down an F1 chance, but he knows that achieving such success in the United States would strengthen his case to make the switch.

It seems fanciful at this point, but he impressed McLaren with his work on Friday and has been making progress in F1 machinery. Winning the Indy 500 would only boost his hopes of taking the overall championship too, and if he achieves that with McLaren in the coming years, would you really bet against Zak Brown making the crossover happen if he had a vacancy?