Checo Pérez faces the most critical year: either he sticks out his elbows or he says goodbye to Red Bull

Checo Pérez runs with a certain advantage to the job interview at Red Bull.

His contract ends at the end of 2024, that is, this season is the last one he has certainty as a driver for the Austrian team.

That is if, and only if, he can convince the leadership that he can be reliable, win a race and resign himself to any request that Max Verstappen makes on the track.

At Red Bull they are open to evaluating other candidates.

The Mexican wants to fight, whatever the cost.

It is Pérez's fourth year at Red Bull.

Those years have been a delicacy for the energy drink company because they have seen Verstappen become world champion three times, win the constructors' world championship twice and a runner-up finish achieved by the Mexican.

For the rest of the world, being number two can be forgotten, but for Mexico, a country in need of good news, it is a milestone.

Pérez is above the legendary Rodríguez brothers.

The first data from the Formula 1 preseason have put Red Bull as the main candidate to win the title, barring surprises that blow up the year.

Verstappen has his fourth title on his radar, the same record as that of the German Sebastian Vettel.

Checo Pérez's aspiration is to fight the Dutchman and, in an idyllic moment, be crowned champion.

The reality, however, is that Red Bull wants to enhance the legacy of its champion.

What will be up to the Mexican will be to add crucial points so that the team can win the constructors' world championship again and so that he can be runner-up again.

“It's important for me to see where we started, how we're doing, how we're progressing.

I want to see the development throughout the season.

That is my main priority for the year,” the Mexican told the official Formula 1 blog.

Red Bull mechanics work on Checo Pérez's car, in Bahrain.ALI HAIDER (EFE)

The big surprises came even before the start of the season when Ferrari announced that the seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton, will be its driver at the start of 2025. That will leave no place for Carlos Sainz Jr., who was the team's driver. B for Red Bull, formerly called Toro Rosso.

Other drivers who will be free in 2025 will be Fernando Alonso, Esteban Ocon, Alex Albon, Yuki Tsunoda, Valtteri Bottas, Guanyu Zhou, Kevin Magnussen, Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo.

Ricciardo is the main candidate to return to the seat he left in 2019. The Australian, trained at home, has been supported on different occasions by the bosses.

In 2023, Red Bull signed Ricciardo as their reserve driver, although he was actually more of an ambassador for all the team's marketing activities until he had to take the place of a pressured Nyck de Vries at Alpha Tauri.

If he has a huge season, he will make things difficult for Checo Pérez.

“It's good that that [Red Bull's second driver spot] is in our heads.

He will bring out the best in us as competitors and teammates,” Ricciardo, 34, told

.

Pérez, who at 34 years old is facing his 14th year in F1, has put aside the idea of ​​retirement.

“The end is closer than the beginning, but it is not something I think about yet.

I'm thinking about starting this season strong and I'm sure it won't be my last contract in Formula 1,” he said at the beginning of February.

2023 was excessively hard for the Mexican who, at some point during the season, could not perform, not even in the qualifying rounds.

Despite everything, he was able to get the runner-up position in the World Cup.

This 2024 will be full of rumors that will place him outside Red Bull, also as a new driver at Mercedes or Alpine.

Anything can happen.

What remains for the Mexican is to find himself: redemption.

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