Sergio Perez's shock admission to Spanish media as the Mexican battles for his seat alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull

Sergio Perez made a shocking revelation to the Spanish media that he's had thoughts of retiring and leaving the sport because of the continuous pressure on him. The 2024 F1 season has been an especially rough one for the Mexican, as his form has nosedived to a large extent. Unlike the last few seasons where he was consistently in the top 5 of the championship, he languishes in P8 right now.

A part of it has been a result of the driver finding it hard to adapt to the car, and the other part has been Red Bull's loss of competitiveness. The Austrian team does not have the fastest car anymore, and that brings the drivers into the limelight even more.

Sergio Perez's position has been under the spotlight for a long time. In 2022 and 2023, there were clouds over his future, and even Daniel Ricciardo was brought back to have a backup in place if the Mexican didn't perform.

This year, the pressure is even more primarily because the car is not in a good place, and that has led to a lack of strong results for the team.

In an interview with Spanish outlet DAZN, Sergio Perez opened up about how even he was starting to feel the pressure and recalled the moment he felt he should call time on his career. The Mexican did reveal that he buried the thought away and moved past it as he said,

"These last six months I thought about it, but it took me three seconds to make the decision. In the end, it would be the easy route, after so many years, to leave and in a way give up. I would never have forgiven myself for it.”

Sergio Perez wants to leave on his own terms

Sergio Perez also opened up on his yearning to leave the sport on his own terms and not stick around for too long. The Mexican quoted Fernando Alonso's example, a driver who has been racing in his 40s in F1 and felt that this was not something that he wanted to do.

Talking about how he wanted to spend more time with his kids and family, Perez said,

"I want to finish my career when I want and not when someone tells me to. That is my main focus: to get to the point where I can decide my future. For now I am very motivated, the truth is, I really want to continue in F1. I enjoy it. Especially the good moments you enjoy a lot, but you also learn to enjoy the bad ones."

He added,

"For now I have two more years on my contract, and two years in F1 is a long time, but I know that the end is getting closer. I don't see myself running here like Fernando Alonso, for example, whom I admire a lot for everything he does at his age. It's not that I wouldn't like to, but because I have small children and I want to spend a lot more time with them. At the end of the day, they will be the limit."

Sergio Perez does have a contract with Red Bull that continues until the end of the 2026 F1 season.