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Red Bull have confirmed that Liam Lawson has been replaced at Red Bull after just 2 races in their car. But how has he compared to his predacessor Sergio Perez who had a shocking 2024 season?
Here’s a look at 13 statistics about Perez’ terrible final season that show which driver really was the worst.
Lawson's terrible start
Liam Lawson joined the Red Bull racing squad at the start of the 2025 season, replacing Sergio Perez who was reportedly payed off somewhere around $15 million to terminate his Red Bull contract early.
Lawson’s first two races at Australia and China have been poor. He qualified P18 in the first round at Albert Park in Melbourne, a track he’d never driven before. Then he crashed out later on in the race when the rain fell.
The second round at China was a sprint weekend. He qualified last for the sprint race which he finished in P14. Then he again qualified last for the Grand Prix which he finished in P12 (it was P15 on the road but three others were disqualified).
So P18, P20, P20 in qualifying and a DNF, P14, P12 in the three races he’s competed in. Not a good start, and not good enough to retain his seat as he’s been demoted back to VCARB and replaced by Yuki.
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But before the 2025 season began, Lawson had only competed in 11 Grand Prix. By the time Perez had finished 2024 he’d competed in 14 seasons of F1 and started 281 Grand Prix.
So given Checo was vastly more experienced, is Liam Lawson really doing any worse than he was? Or have his first couple of results in a car that’s difficult to drive actually been pretty good, all things considered.
Below are 13 statistics that show just how bad 2024 was for Perez.
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13 shocking statistics about Perez' 2024 season
1: Sergio Pérez’s 152 points in 2024 were only 34.8% of the 437 points Max Verstappen achieved in the same season. This is the lowest percentage of points that the teammate of that year’s World Champion has scored since 1994.
That’s right, not since 1994 when Schumacher raced for Benetton have we seen such a disparity of points between that season’s WDC and their teammate. Or in the case of 1994 it was teammates plural, as Johnny Herbert, JJ Lehto and, ironically, Jos Verstappen all had a go at being Schumacher’s teammate.
But their combined 11 points were only 11.96% of Schumacher’s 92 points that year, and Schumacher actually missed two races.
2: Max Verstappen scored 437 points in 2024. That is exactly the same as Perez scored in 2023 (285) and 2024 (152) combined.
If ever there was a statistic to depress a Perez fan, this is probably as good as any. Max’s points score for 2024 is exactly the same as Checo’s for the previous two seasons combined. Dr Marko was not happy with this one.
3: Sergio Perez is only the second driver to not take a pole position in a season where their team mate wins the World Championship, since the turn of the century.
Perez has actually achieved this feat twice; first in 2021 and now again in 2024. The only other driver to manage it was Rubens Barichello in 2001, when his teammate Michael Schumacher was at his most dominant for Ferrari.
4: Sergio Perez has the lowest championship finishing position (8th) in a year where his teammate is WDC, since 1983.
In 1983 Nelson Piquet won the F1 title driving for Brabham-BMW. His teammate that year was Riccardo Patrese who finished the season in P9. Perez’ P8 finish in the standings this year is the lowest we’ve seen as the teammate of the WDC in 41 years (barring any seasons where the WDC’s teammate doesn’t complete a full season of races like 1994 and 1985).
5: The points deficit between Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen in 2024 was 285 points. The combined deficit of every other lead driver and their teammate was 278 points.
Tha’s a big gap. Where drivers have been swapped out during the year (Daniel Ricciardo and Liam Lawson, for example), their combined points were added up and the deficit calculated to Yuki who was the lead VCARB driver. Ollie Bearman’s 7 points for Ferrari were also added to Sainz’ total to calculate the total deficit to Leclerc.
6: Sergio Perez’s P8 finish in the driver’s standings is the lowest for a full-time Red Bull driver since Daniel Ricciardo’s P8 in 2015.
DR had a pretty average season in 2015 in an under-performing Red Bull. He was beaten by his teammate Daniil Kvyat. During 2015 DR achieved 2 podiums and 92 points in the championship, compared to Perez who, in a championship-winning car, took 4 podiums and 152 points in 2024.
7: Perez failed to finish on the podium 20 times in a row in 2024, setting a new Red Bull record.
The previous record for a Red Bull non-podium finishing streak was Daniil Kvyat in 2015 who managed 18 podium-less races that year. The season was shorter in 2015 with just 19 rounds, but in theory you could argue that would give Perez even more chance to grab some silverware.
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8: Sergio Perez scored more points in the first 5 races (85) than he did in the remaining 19 races (67).
With such a torrid end to the season it’s easy to forget that Checo got off to a great start in 2024. He took four podiums in the first five races, helping Red Bull achieve three 1-2 finishes in the process. But after the sixth round in Miami, his season fell off a cliff. Scoring less points in the last 19 races than he did in the first 5 is, frankly, unforgivable.
9: Sergio Perez averaged 2.72 points per weekend since Miami.
Miami was the sixth round of the season and his last respectable result in 2024, where he took home 18 points after finishing in P4 and P3 in the GP and Sprint Races respectively. After that it all started to go badly wrong for Checo, so much so that over the remaining 18 races he averaged less than 3 points a weekend.
10: Sergio Perez’ best result since Miami was P6. Verstappen’s worst result since Miami was P6.
That says it all really. Checo’s best result in the last 18 rounds was the same as Max’s worst. That why one’s a 4-time World Champ, and one isn’t.
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11: If Perez didn’t participate in a single race after the first two rounds, Red Bull would still have come third in the constructors.
Of all the stats here, this one perhaps shows more than any how little Perez did to help his team’s efforts in the constructor’s standings in 2024.
At the end of the season Red Bull came 3rd with 589 points and Mercedes were 4th on 468 points.
Max Verstappen alone scored 437 points. So Perez’ first two results of the season where he took a combined 36 points would have been enough to take Red Bull to 473 points in the standings and stay ahead of Mercedes. His results later on in the season were so poor that he had minimal effect on his team’s position.
12: Sergio Perez was out-qualified by a KICK Sauber in 4 out of his last 5 races.
This just adds insult to injury. Perez was poor in qualifying, too, seeing a number of Q1 exits and being outqualified by both Bottas and Guanyu in the slowest car on the grid.
13: Sergio Perez nearly scored half the amount of points as Max Verstappen during their time as teammates.
Since Checo joined Red Bull at the start of 2021 until the end of 2024 he amassed a total of 932 points. In the same time Verstappen scored 1861.5 points, just 2.5 points away from exactly double the tally of Perez.
