Sergio Perez has rubbished rumors of his impending retirement from F1, insisting he plans on remaining on the grid even beyond the term of his present contract with Red Bull.
Perez enjoyed a flying start to his 2023 campaign, the Mexican trading wins with teammate Max Verstappen in the opening races of the season.
But it all slowly dissolved into a mound of mistakes and setbacks for the Mexican who, despite being armed with the best machine in the field, has been unable to turn around his fortunes.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has vowed to help Perez go “back to the basics” and recover his form while also insisting that the 33-year-old will see out in 2024 the remaining year of his contract with Red Bull.
But Helmut Marko on the other hand has been more evasive, publicly reminding Perez that Red Bull has a backlog of drivers – Yuki Tsunoda, Daniel Ricciardo and Liam Lawson – that it can rely on if the Mexican doesn’t improve his results.
After the Qatar Grand Prix, the internet was rife with speculation that Perez will throw in the towel and announce his retirement from F1 at his home race next week in Mexico City.
However, Perez laughed off the hearsay.
“I'm just laughing at it,” he said. “There's nothing I can do. I am fully focused on my job.
“That really sums up my season. A guy said something about me and then all of a sudden, it becomes true. But I have a contract for next year and I have no reason not to complete that contract.
“I'm going to give my very best to it. I've done a commitment. But more than that, it will not be my final contract in F1.”
Perez insisted that despite his current struggles and woes, his passion is still deeply entrenched in F1 and he won’t take the easy way out and walk away from his travails.
“It is difficult, of course,” he said. “It's not ideal when you go through a patch, a difficult period of your career. But I just love the challenge of getting back at it.
“I think the easy thing would be to just walk out of it. But that's not who I am and I will not give up.
“I will have zero doubts that I will be back to my best level and that is my only target that I have in mind. I'm not even thinking about retirement or anything like that because that is the easy route.”
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