Helmut Marko says Sergio Perez “completely collapsed” in Belgian GP

Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko says Sergio Perez “completely collapsed” in the F1 Belgian Grand Prix.

Perez enjoyed his strongest qualifying since April’s Chinese Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps and lined up second on the grid for Sunday’s race with his teammate Max Verstappen shuffled down to 11th due to an engine penalty.

The under-pressure Mexican could not capitalise on his front-row starting position and ultimately slipped to eighth and three places behind his recovering teammate by the end of the 44-lap race. Perez was promoted to seventh following George Russell’s disqualification.

His performance did not impress Marko, who told Sky Germany: "Sergio had the opportunity to take a good result from second place. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Especially in the last stint, he completely collapsed, where he set 1m48s lap times.

"What looked so positive in qualifying unfortunately didn't materialise in the race.”

Red Bull are set to hold a meeting on Monday in which Perez’s future will be on the agenda.

"For us, the situation is such that we will also go through the overall situation for 2025. We have a number of drivers and we have a concept,” Marko said.

"But of course every result is [important] for Sergio, and eighth [seventh] place from second on the grid is certainly not what we expected.”

Perez, who has not finished higher than seventh since the Miami Grand Prix nine races ago, acknowleged he had a “very disappointing race”.

“It started well, I was just struggling a lot on the straights,” he explained. “I don't know what was going on, but I had to save battery early on in the first couple of laps, and I was just very weak on the straights, and once I managed to clear it, charge the pack a bit, I was staying there.

"But then the second stint, jumping onto the medium tyre with all the traffic behind, it just made it really, really difficult. Very tricky.

"We did quite a short stint as well, so we were just out of sync. I think we were just not good with tyres today. Balance wasn't there as well, so plenty of things to analyse on our side.

"On Saturday I had a good qualifying, a good day. It doesn't change anything. I think we have too much going on in the team and a lot of things that we have to focus on, and we cannot waste any energy with all this speculation.

"This is the last time I will speak about the future, so just to make it clear for everyone, I will not be speaking anymore. I will not answer any more questions about the future.”