Max Verstappen has a valid contract with Red Bull, which binds him to the Austrian structure until 2028, although, how could it be otherwise, there are some clauses by which he could leave the team related to the team’s performance.
However, in the garage next door, Sergio Pérez will end his contract at the end of 2022 and, despite what he has repeated on several occasions before, Red Bull’s main motorsports advisor, Helmut Marko , does not rule out that Pierre Gasly can return to the team in 2023.
“He still has a contract that lasts until 2023,” Marko said in an interview to be published on the Formel1.de YouTube channel on Friday and which can now be viewed exclusively for channel members.
“If this contract expires and we can’t offer him any chance to get to the first team, we will most likely let him go. We don’t want that [retain him],” the Red Bull adviser added.
Gerhard Berger, a person very close to Marko and the great boss of the brand, Dietrich Mateschitz , recently dropped that Gasly was “good enough” to have “a new opportunity, as long as he gives himself to the maximum and achieves good results” .
For his part, Marko admitted that ” Gerhard is right”. Although he wanted to clarify his words: “At the moment we have a contract with ‘ Checo ‘ and now we have to compare the performance of these two drivers directly. We have until the middle of the year.”
At the moment, in the first two races of the 2022 season, Sergio Pérez did not give Red Bull any reason to end their union, on the contrary, after the weekend in Saudi Arabia, where the Mexican got pole, he left very good feelings despite finishing fourth, mainly due to an unfortunate safety car.
Pérez led the race in the early stages of the race and Red Bull prioritized their strategy over Verstappen’s, something that was made clear “even before the race”, according to Marko . “At such an early stage, with both drivers still on zero points, there are no team orders.
The Red Bull advisor believes that the new RB18 is now more suited to the Mexican driver and acknowledges that he has also managed to take a step forward compared to last season thanks to his first year of experience with the team: “The single-seater suits him better, he feels more comfortable. He also knows the team better. We are very happy with this progress”, concluded Marko .
