Former Red Bull Racing Formula One driver Sergio Perez‘s latest move suggests he is planning a racing return. Despite being away from full-time racing, Perez’s former physiotherapist Xavi Martos has revealed a change in the Mexican driver’s management, which hints at his preparation for an F1 return next year.
Perez has been linked to the Cadillac F1 team, which is preparing for its premier class debut next year as the sport’s eleventh team. The American outfit reportedly prefers experienced drivers in its initial years, although it has had talks with young drivers in recent months.
Martos, who trained Perez during his Red Bull days, said that Perez has parted ways with his former manager, Julian Jakobi, to sign a new one. Martos raised a significant question: Why would a driver who is not active in racing hire a new manager? Suggesting that key developments have been taking place for Perez on the professional front, he said on the Duralavita podcast:
“I think people haven’t noticed. I watched as a spectator and people have never said it.
“Checo has a new manager – I don’t know if you’ve read it. He had Julian [Jakobi], now he has another one.
“I wonder: Why does he have a new manager?”
He added:
“I think that answers everything. If you don’t want to stop driving, you don’t hire a new manager. At least, that wouldn’t occur to me.”
Planet F1 reported Perez’s quotes from the Desde el Paddock podcast from June, where he confirmed hiring Khalil Beschir, a former racing driver, as his manager. He said:
“I want to go back because I don’t want to end my career like this. I’ll go back if it’s worth paying the price to be in F1.”
According to F1 presenter Lawrence Barretto, Perez and Bottas have been shortlisted by Cadillac as its drivers for the 2026 season, and only the paperwork remains pending before an announcement is made. Newsweek Sports reported his comments:
“Bottas has obviously been linked with Alpine. But actually, I think the most likely landing spot for him is Cadillac, and we haven’t talked about them yet.
“But I hear that they haven’t got any contracts done — not even any head of terms — but Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas are the two drivers that they want at that team, and it’s just a case of them going through the motions of it.
“So it might be some time until we find that out, and obviously, there is still some time that that could change. But that’s where we’re looking, I think.”
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