Perez job in jeopardy as Red Bull boss refuses to confirm Mexican driver will finish F1 season

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Sergio Perez climbed into his car for the Mexico City Grand Prix as nearly 155,000 fans at his home race shouted “Checo! Checo! Checo!" in adoration of the wildly popular Formula 1 driver.

It was a critical race for the slumping Perez — he said repeatedly all weekend it is his favorite event of the year — and he knows his job is in danger because of his lack of performance.

Alas, Perez could not deliver for his hopeful fans or for Red Bull Racing. After a 17th-place finish Sunday, team principal Christian Horner would not guarantee Perez will finish the season.

Horner had been emphatic two days earlier that the contract extension Perez signed earlier this year was valid for 2025. But he has performance clauses in his existing contract, and when The Associated Press asked Horner directly if Perez would finish this season, Horner refused to endorse the driver for the final four races.

“There comes a point in time that difficult decisions have to be made,” Horner said. “We’re now third in the constructors championship.”

Horner did say Perez would be in the car next weekend in Brazil.

Horner admitted the Mexican “had a horrible weekend” that started when he was eliminated in the first round of Saturday qualifying, relegating him to an 18th-place starting position. Perez was then outside his box at the start and received a five-second penalty.

He later got into a wheel-to-wheel battle with Liam Lawson of Red Bull sister team RB, and the contact caused damage that made Perez's car uncompetitive.

A win by Carlos Sainz moved Ferrari ahead of Red Bull for second in the lucrative constructor standings and the two-time reigning champions of the prize that pays an estimated $150 million is now a longshot to win it for the third consecutive year.

Red Bull's slip in that category is largely because of Perez's failures. He's eighth in the standings, winless on the year, and crashed out of three races.

“He knows Formula 1 is a results-based business, and you know, inevitably, when you’re not delivering, then the spotlight is firmly on,” Horner said. “When anyone is underperforming, there is always going to be scrutiny on that. You know, as a team, we need to have both (drivers) scoring points.”

Max Verstappen has scored 362 points this season; Perez has scored just 150.

“We’re working with him as hard as we can to try and support him," Horner said. "We’ve done everything that we can to support Checo, and we’ll continue to do so in Brazil next weekend. But there comes a point in time that you can only do so much.”

Perez, although disappointed with his weekend, didn't sound like a driver worried about his job.

“This has been a complicated weekend," he said. "I always say it’s my dream to win the grand prix in Mexico and I’ll try again next year. After all of the support from all of these fans, it’s incredible. They have given me so much, it’s all worth it for them. We’ll try again for them next year stronger.”

His future — or lack of one in F1 — could be a problem for the Mexico City race, which heads into the final year of its current contract seeking an extension. The race this weekend drew a record 404,958 spectators and was sold out for the ninth consecutive year.

But many of the fans who attend come to see Perez, and attendance could slip if he or another Mexican driver isn't on the F1 grid. Event president Alejandro Soberón said tickets for this weekend went on sale two weeks after Perez crashed out of last year's race seconds after it started and still sold out in two hours.

Tickets for 2025 will again go on sale in two weeks, and it is unclear if Perez's status for next year will be determined even though Horner had been adamant Friday he was under contract for 2025.

Soberon believes the race will have high demand.

“There’s very few races who have a local driver. Everybody of course would love to have a local driver, but the first year we did the race here 50% of the fans were in a red T-shirt, so Ferrari has a wonderful following here," he said. "We have no more capacity. We could have drawn 600,000 if we had unlimited capacity, we could have another 200,000 here, but we cannot put them.

“That’s why it sold out so fast in one year in advance. Probably without Checo maybe a drop of 20%, 25%, naturally, (but) still would be a sellout.”

Soberón also said the Mexico City Grand Prix is so unique — it embraces the Mexican culture and incorporates it in the paddock and throughout the venue — and is a destination race for F1 fans outside of the country. He noted that the event is a boon for the local economy, with everything from hotels, restaurants and transportation services fully booked all week.

“The Mexican crowd, the fandom, is very strong for F1 in general. Obviously, Checo is a great enhancement for this,” he said. "But Mexico has been very close to the heart of F1. We have a much better show on track today to what we had five years ago. I think competition and quality of the spectacle at the track is going to be enough to sustain the interest of the crowd, so we as a promoter of the race, we’re very excited trying to figure out a way to extend our (F1) contract regardless of Checo.

“We’re fairly optimistic that we’re going to have a race for many, many years."

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Fans of Red Bull driver Sergio Perez, from Mexico, attend a promotional event by sponsors in Mexico City, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024, ahead of the weekend Formula One Mexico Grand Prix auto race. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Red Bull driver Sergio Perez of Mexico looks up during a press conference at Hermanos Rodriguez racetrack ahead of the Formula One Mexico Grand Prix in Mexico City, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

A fan of Red Bull driver Sergio Perez poses for photos with a Mexican flag during the third free practice ahead of the Formula One Mexico Grand Prix auto race at the Hermanos Rodriguez racetrack in Mexico City, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Fans cheer for Red Bull driver Sergio Perez of Mexico and Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz of Spain before the start of the Formula One Mexico Grand Prix auto race at the Hermanos Rodriguez racetrack in Mexico City, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Red Bull driver Sergio Perez of Mexico leaves the pits during the third free practice ahead of the Formula One Mexico Grand Prix auto race at the Hermanos Rodriguez racetrack in Mexico City, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen of the Netherlands, right, and teammate Sergio Perez of Mexico greet spectators before the Formula One Mexico Grand Prix auto race at the Hermanos Rodriguez racetrack in Mexico City, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Former Sen. Bob Packwood, a moderate Oregon Republican whose reputation as a champion of abortion and women's rights was spoiled at the end of his career by allegations of sexual harassment, has died. He was 93.

Packwood's death on Saturday was announced in an obituary sent to media outlets by his family. The release didn't include additional details.

Packwood was a political scrapper who first refused to quit the chamber in which he had served for 27 years, saying he didn't want to be remembered only for that controversy.

Before the #MeToo era, Packwood stood out as an example of private behavior undermining a man’s public image. He had been praised by Planned Parenthood and others.

The great-grandson of a member of the 1857 Oregon Constitutional Convention, Packwood established himself as a social moderate and fiscal conservative who often voted across party lines. He considered running for president in 1980.

Elected to the Senate in 1968, Packwood was best known as the leading Republican advocate of abortion rights and was widely admired by women's groups throughout the country until the Senate Ethics Committee launched an investigation into the allegations of sexual and official misconduct in 1993.

More than two dozen women, former employees and acquaintances, accused him of making unwanted or uninvited sexual advances.

The allegations remained the target of an ethics probe that widened to include other alleged acts of official misconduct. He resigned in September 1995, then went to start a lucrative lobbying business in Washington.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, who replaced Packwood in 1996, said while he should be praised for his record on abortion rights and tax reform, how he treated women overshadows it all.

“His horrible history as documented in his own diaries will forever overshadow that public record. Simply put, historians’ first line about Bob Packwood must include those women who he abused and assaulted for years and years,” Wyden said in a statement.

As chairman and then ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Packwood was a master of cutting deals and forging compromises needed to pass tax legislation through Congress. He was most proud of the lead role he played in a sweeping tax reform of 1986 that lowered the top income tax bracket and eliminated many itemized deductions.

Over his career, he was described as a blunt, independent, outspoken politician who was a maverick, boat-rocker, loose cannon, skilled partisan, and, above all, political survivor.

"I think they probably all ring true," Packwood told The Associated Press in December 1992.

"I would like to think that I am nobody's lackey. I try to reach conclusions independently and then I'm willing to fight for those conclusions; if necessary, having to fight against my party or my party's president," he said.

Packwood won his first Senate election at age 36, narrowly defeating Democratic Sen. Wayne L. Morse, an Oregon legend who had held the seat for 23 years. He quickly grabbed attention as a rising star in the GOP. By 1980, he was elected chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

But he lost the seat when the White House backed a competitor after Packwood publicly accused President Ronald Reagan of alienating women, African Americans and Jews.

Just two weeks after Packwood's reelection in 1992, The Washington Post printed allegations from former female employees and acquaintances that the senator had subjected them to uninvited sexual advances.

The Senate Ethics Committee also investigated allegations that Packwood solicited jobs from lobbyists for his ex-wife, used his staff to try to threaten the female accusers into keeping quiet and obstructed the investigation by altering his personal diaries.

The Senate held two days of extraordinary debate in 1993 over whether Packwood should have to comply with an ethics committee subpoena for his diaries, in which he reportedly made entries relevant to the investigation. The Senate voted 94-6 to enforce the subpoena.

Packwood took the case to federal courts and lost, ending when Chief Justice William Rehnquist refused Packwood's request for the U.S. Supreme Court to intercede.

Packwood launched his lobbying business, Sunrise Research Corp., in 1997. By 1999, the firm was grossing $1.5 million a year. His business slowed in later years, but he told a City Club of Portland audience in 2010 that he was still spending about half his time in Washington lobbying for a number of clients.

It was interesting work, Packwood told the audience, according to The Oregonian, but "it is not as much fun as being in the Senate."

As Congress became increasingly partisan following his departure, Packwood continued to advocate a centrist tact and called for Oregon to create nonpartisan elections in his 2010 City Club speech.

Packwood's wife, Elaine Franklin, was his former chief of staff who became a political consultant in Portland. The couple had homes in the Portland area and Washington.

In a November 2002 interview with the Salem Statesman Journal, Packwood said he had gotten past the scandal that forced him out of office.

"People have told me it must have been tough on me, or it seems unfair," he said. "But you cannot go through the rest of life and say look what happened. Pretty soon you become a bore to your friends.

"I told myself I was not old enough to retire,” Packwood said, “so I have got to get at life and not complain about it.”

FILE - Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bob Packwood, R-Ore., holds a book entitled "Intensive Care" by Ross Perot, during hearings dealing with the future of Medicare on Capitol Hill, Aug. 30, 1995. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook, File)