“This is quickly becoming untenable, isn’t it?“
Sergio Perez was already in the worst run of his entire F1 career. A top-tier team that’s given him every chance to steady the ship, and despite that, just 12 points in the last six races heading into Hungary. Again, for perspective, Nico Hulkenberg had 16 in the previous two.
One of the weekend’s biggest stories going into Hungary was whether Red Bull was going to keep Checo on—murmurs of a 100-point deficit performance clause, a kicker that hinged on Checo’s extension being signed. Questions were put to Yuki Tsunoda about whether he should be a contender, and thinking it was stupid that Liam Lawson might get the gig instead. Perez got praised for his “Best Friday of the Year” by Christian Horner, which is about as big a backhanded compliment as I’ve ever seen in F1.
Then Saturday happens. It rains just before qualifying, but not enough to force the Intermediate tyre. They go out on slicks on a slippery track. Perez puts it on the wall. For the fourth time in the last six races, Perez gets eliminated at the death in Q1.
No. No. No. Not again. It’s not even a huge mistake, it’s an understandable error given the conditions, but the accumulation of it all only amplifies the pain. Remember, he did the same thing a fortnight ago at Silverstone. He wasn’t the only one, even his teammate Max Verstappen did. The difference is, Max was able to save it. Checo, on both occasions, didn’t.
Now, in Checo’s defence, his comeback to seventh in Hungary? Pretty solid. Beat George Russell straight up in a similar position by hitting the undercut, and his pace on the hard tyre wasn’t half bad, reasonably close to Max’s. It might, MIGHT be enough to save him. But he did wreck a car along the way.
The latest from Helmut Marko? We’ll decide after Belgium next week. So with that in mind, I’ve decided to break down the contenders and weigh up just what Red Bull should do. Let’s get into it.
Option 1: Keeping Checo For Now
- The safest option
- Commercial value
- Untenably bad form, especially now when it matters so much more
- The opportunity cost of potentially better replacements
Dre’s Confidence Level: 55%*
Look, there’s always going to be an argument to take the safe option here, especially in a sport where I’ve long said, it’s gotten more risk-averse than ever with a stronger grid in terms of quality and prospects now having to be generational level to be given a shot. There’s always a case of “Better the Devil You Know…”, as you never truly know how good a replacement will be until he’s actually in your seat. And let’s be real here, the Red Bull #2 is a career crippler, making mincemeat out of Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and to a degree, Daniel Ricciardo. More on him in a bit.
Checo also brings a fair amount of commercial value to the sport. He’s Mexican, and they’re fiercely loyal to their athletes, and it shows. It also likely keeps Max happier because Perez hasn’t been a threat to the system since he got there.
But this form cannot run anymore. This IS “getting cut mid-season” levels of bad, and not just from fans on Twitter who love to over-speculate. And you’re Red Bull, you have two teams and potentially three drivers who could come in immediately. If this isn’t exactly why you have two teams, what are they there for? If there was ever a time to pull the trigger, it’s now. Worst case scenario, you lose a constructor title you’re probably losing if you keep him anyway.
Now, there’s also an asterisk here for a reason. It reads: *If you can guarantee Carlos Sainz for 2025, deduct 20% off the score*.
Now this is a long shot. It’s long been hinted at that the Verstappen and Sainz families do not get along, and Verstappen’s family has a huge level of influence within the team. Sainz is a great floor raiser, but I feel you have to have an entire team around him to best utilise him. But he IS the best driver available right now on the market and he’s someone I’d confidently say is an upgrade. There are a lot of moving parts politically, but for me, he’s the next best option, even if it means taking the pain of keeping Checo until the end of the season.
Option 2: Replace Checo with… Daniel Ricciardo
- Part of the furniture
- You’ve never been able to replace him
- He’s the most expendable option if it doesn’t work out
- His Last Good F1 Season Was During The Pandemic
Dre’s Confidence Level: 50%
There’s a dating analogy I’d like to borrow from an old friend of mine (James McLynn), who once wrote about this beautifully. Daniel Ricciardo’s F1 tenure has been like dating Jose Mourinho. The first time, you hit things off. Cool, charismatic, great with the new millennials, and a winner. Takes you on your first family holiday in 50+ years. You feel great and you think he might be the one. But as time goes on, he gets a bit too comfortable. He tells the same jokes over and over again. Starts a Podcast that keeps you up at night. Gets grumpy when things don’t start going his way. Your eyes wander elsewhere at the local dance club. And when Jose doesn’t like it, he leaves.
Red Bull bringing back Daniel Ricciardo feels like late-stage Mourinho. The hair’s a bit greyer. The people management isn’t quite the same. The first year feels like you’re playing tonsil tennis with a hot new partner but the buzz doesn’t last as long. And next thing you know, you’re managing Roma.
The analogy’s a bit confusing but I hope you got where I was coming from. Daniel Ricciardo has an upside. You thought he showed enough in that tyre test last year to give him an immediate chance. But it’s a chance that has become a little bit tainted. He had to blow Yuki Tsunoda away to get to the front of the queue, and he just hasn’t done that. The big stats aren’t flattering, but the average qualifying differences and race pace aren’t off by a huge amount. And that’s the problem. It raises doubt for him, and Yuki. I’ll get to him in a minute.
Ricciardo is also very well-liked. A Red Bull return would be a huge scoop for a lot of people commercially, from the DTS fandom to the TV and media crossovers he’s been pushing for. But he turned 35 this month and you have to wonder after the years at McLaren and the wishy-washy form since coming back, is this all worth it for a guy who has a decent chance of being Checo 2.0?
On the other side of the coin though, it would make him the easiest guy to toss out of the equation if it doesn’t work out. There’s probably more value in keeping Yuki Tsunoda long-term, with Liam Lawson waiting in the wings with a seat promised for him. Isack Hadjar leads the F2 Championship right now too. RB isn’t a junior team anymore, let’s see if Red Bull treats it as such here.
There’s always the temptation to hook back up with an old flame. But you’ve got to remember, you’re single again for a reason.
Option 3: Replace Checo with… Yuki Tsunoda
- He’s The Hot Hand
- He’s Still Only 24
- Just How Good IS he?
- Lack of composure
Dre’s Confidence Level: 40%
Then there’s the hot hand option. Yuki Tsunoda is having his best F1 season yet. As mentioned with Ricciardo, it’s not as simple as the head-to-heads suggest (8-4 In Races, 9-4 In Quali in his favour), as the average differences in pace between them are very tight. But Yuki seems to be able to punch that little bit harder, and the Japanese driver hitting the 1-stopper for 9th in Hungary has been a typical strong weekend for him this season.
And that’s where the head-scratching starts. Just how good is Yuki Tsunoda? He’s already in an unprecedented fourth season at Red Bull’s second team, something no one’s ever done before, and his career is littered with question marks. He was blown out by Pierre Gasly as a teammate in the first two years in F1. If you cut him here in typical Red Bull fashion, there’d have been a valid reason for it. He got a third season, and he was strong with a very weak AlphaTauri, but Nyck de Vries was so poor, that it questioned just how good Yuki had been in the same equipment.
He then breaks even with Ricciardo as the replacement and had such a bad run of luck with Lawson as his teammate that I’m STILL not sure how good he is. Good enough for a Red Bull drive? I don’t know. But on paper, he’s your best chance if you still genuinely believe you have a shot of defending your 51-point Constructor’s point lead. And from how I’ve seen Red Bull talk about Tsunoda, they’ve never given me the impression that Yuki’s got a future with them.
It’s worth mentioning that the man’s composure is still an issue. His qualifying smash in Hungary was huge. I haven’t forgotten him nearly piling into his teammate after the team orders call RB made in Bahrain. And of course, his ableist slur in Austrian qualifying put his team in hot water. Yuki still has a reputation as a bit of a hothead and he can’t afford to make those kinds of mistakes having been thrown into the highest pressure of scenarios.
If Ricciardo is the throwaway safe pick for the Perez replacement, you can probably expand your performance scale a little bit. If you’re going purely on the best driver available right now, it’s Yuki Tsunoda. But there is also another…
Option 4: Replace Checo with… Liam Lawson
- Impressed Massively In 2023
- High Risk / High Reward
- What If This Doesn’t Work Out?
- Sudden Promotion Doesn’t Seem Necessary
Dre’s Confidence Meter: 40%
And then there’s the “roll the dice” option, and arguably the boldest pick of them all. Tell Liam Lawson you’re skipping RB altogether and you’re getting chucked in with the big boys.
There are many reasons why this is so risky. We’re basing this move on just five career starts. The kindest thing I can say about Liam Lawson’s cameo in 2023 was that he didn’t drive like a rookie. He drove like he had three seasons under his belt already. Brought the car home in Zandvoort, 11th in Monza, 9th in Singapore and knocked out Max Verstappen in Qualifying, 11th and beating Yuki Tsunoda at his home track, and then a sloppy Qatar round where he’d never raced before. That’s a really strong sample size… but that’s just it, it’s a sample size. An F1 season nowadays is nearly 5x bigger than those five starts, and it’s hard to say what Lawson looks like over a full season.
Not to mention, the Red Bull setup is a teammate wrecker. As said before, there have been brighter talents that have been chewed up and spat out by that poisoned chalice of a second seat. Gasly, Kyvat, Albon and potentially Perez too. What happens to Lawson if this doesn’t work out? Does he become another young driver who has to deal with the burden of being another notch on Red Bull’s bedpost? That would suck. But if he’s able to extrapolate the goodness he showed in that sample size… that could be your franchise’s second driver for the next decade. Of all the drivers mentioned in this post, he probably has the highest “ceiling” of anyone here. He walked into F1 on emergency cover from out of the middle of a Super Formula campaign and was trading punches with Yuki Tsunoda immediately. It’s hard not to be intrigued by that.
At first, I thought this was the best option. But I admit, I’ve talked myself down on this one a little bit because Ricciardo just seems so much safer to put in there in the short term and you can still give Lawson a chance in an RB full-time in 2025. “What’s the hurry for this?” is a very valid question here. Hmm…
So What Would Dre Do?
If someone put a gun to my head and forced me to make a decision, right here right now, I’d say… give Checo the rest of the season. This season feels like a series of” 24” where Jack Bauer had to make the “least bad” choice to try and save America, and beyond. If you’re seriously considering sacking a driver mid-season, there is no “good” option here, this is a desperation heave.
And I think ultimately you still have the most data and best chance of rectifying the situation with Perez right now than you do by starting over with someone else in a short-term, incredibly high-stakes situation where you’re asking whoever their replacement is to compete with Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris, George Russell and Oscar Piastri immediately, all of whom have won a race this season.
I don’t think Red Bull will win the Constructor’s Championship regardless. It’s becoming more and more clear to me that McLaren is very close, if not on Red Bull’s level, and they have arguably the most effective driver pairing in F1 right now with Norris leading the charge, and Piastri close behind. If they get the pit wall functioning properly rather than kneeling at Norris’ feet, this team could cook and mount a challenge on all fronts.
So with that in mind, I’d give Checo until season’s end to see if he can get some of his early season form back. But I’d also be reaching out to old friend Carlos Sainz and enquiring if he’s prepared to take a #2 driver’s role at Red Bull.
Everyone and their dad would know that he’s there to back Verstappen up but him, but the fact Sainz has been the #1 driver on the market for six months now and he STILL hasn’t made his mind up says to me he’s holding out for one of the big boy seats, either at Red Bull or at Mercedes as they ponder whether to pull the trigger on Kimi Antonelli. It’s hard to blame him when he knows he’s THE pulse of the driver’s market and the difference between those two seats, and Alpine, Audi or Williams is huge.
I’m genuinely curious. Reach out to me on Elon Musk’s failed business investment or Instagram (@DreHarrison101) and let me know what you’d do at Red Bull. Do you keep Checo? Or do you let him go? And if so, for who? Thanks for reading.
