Formula 1: Sergio Perez is officially out of Red Bull and will be replaced by Liam Lawson in 2025

Red Bull Racing has found a new teammate for Max Verstappen.

The team announced on Wednesday that Sergio Perez would not be back in 2025. The announcement isn’t a huge surprise; At the end of the 2024 season, there were reports that Perez’s future with the team was in doubt.

Perez will be replaced by Liam Lawson.

Perez’s departure comes after an extremely disappointing season. Verstappen won his fourth consecutive world title, but Red Bull finished third in the constructors’ championship behind McLaren and Ferrari, largely because of Perez’s problems.

The 34-year-old Perez finished eighth in the standings, 71 points behind Lewis Hamilton in seventh. He only had four podium finishes and all four of them came in the first five races of the season.

After finishing no lower than fourth in the first six races of 2024, Perez never finished above sixth in the rest of the season as Red Bull’s dominance in the car disappeared. Perez scored just one point in the last five Grand Prix races and the last two races of the season ended in retirement.

In the last three seasons, Perez won five races for Red Bull and finished second behind Verstappen in the 2023 points standings. He scored 29 podiums in four seasons with Red Bull after winning the first race of his career with the current Aston Martin team in the 2020 season.

Lawson was selected for Perez’s seat instead of Yuki Tsunoda. The two finished the 2024 season as teammates on the RB junior team.

Lawson took part in the final six races of the season after replacing Daniel Ricciardo in the team. In 11 starts over two seasons at RB, Lawson averaged a final grade of 12.9. He finished ninth twice for RB in 2024.

Tsunoda competed in 88 races for RB in four seasons. He has a career average of 13.5 and was ranked 12th overall in 2024. Tsunoda will return to RB in 2025 and will likely join Red Bull reserve driver Isack Hadjar in the junior team.