While I understand the reasoning for Perez no longer being Red Bulls number 2, I just do not understand the apparent contempt and dislike towards him. Everyone was disappointed that Danny Ric was booted, with Perez it seems to be the opposite but when you compare their F1 career stats, they are extremely similar.
Nah Perez had always had at worst 2nd best car over the season but mostly the best car. He almost got chased down by Hamilton in 2023 in in the 3rd best car when that redbull car lost one race in the championship. Ricciardo had on occasion the quickest or near quickest car and capitalised on opportunities, Perez had the opportunity on so many more occassions and failed.
Prime Ricciardo was way better than prime Checo. Ricciardo had a Red Bull that was 3rd best most days. Checo’s Red Bulls were some of the most dominant cars in history. When you look at it through that lens, Ricciardo looks really good, and Checo looks really bad. I think people have forgotten how good Daniel was. He was top 5 best drivers in F1 for a solid 4 or 5 years. And arguably the best driver in 1 or 2 years. I’ll echo what Kevin said, Checo is an amazing driver, but he never reached those heights, and even when given the best car, just clearly wasn’t good enough for the top. Add on top of that, he was hogging a top seat for far too long, not even sort of bringing the fight to Max, and cost RB the constructor’s title. Whereas what did Daniel do, do terribly in a couple midfield cars having no effect on the top at all? Thats the difference. I won’t blow smoke, Daniel’s personality bough him a huge amount of time. And some people are getting a little too excited & personal with the Checo critiques. But he did score 49 points in what like 12 races? I mean it literally couldn’t have been worse.
@@nickwilder7722 apparently the Mexican hate-machine has been cracked to 10 and young Liam has been vilified even before anything has been announced. Trump needs to build that wall .. then export
I'd be fine with realistically any of Miami, Jeddah, Imola, and Qatar being binned, preferably all 4. They certainly inflate an already stacked calendar without adding much that other tracks don't already do better.
Monaco's is my favourite to ditch but keep Austin and get rid of the other American ones would be good. Spa, Suzuka, Silverstone and Baku are the ones they shouldn't consider so it'll probably be one of them.
See this is the problem with media lot... When a driver is released during the season, "oh redbull are so unfair", they give Checo every chance including a new contract to help his confidence, "oh they should have fired him already!"... People forget Checo did help the team win in previous years, so it wasn't as cut and dry. But it was the correct decision to release him no that the season has ended.
Agreed, his last 6 months were horrible. Nowhere close to the level he was at in 2020-2023. And the media has been even worse then Checo was but for them that's their norm. Pretty disgusting.
Many of the media sources who have been calling repeatedly for Checo's head on a pike are already saying "was it right to sack him?" It's all clicks these days and stats spread out over many GPs don't lie, Checo has totally lost his confidence. Why he can't realise it for himself is quite sad.
Checo staying had nothing to do with Checo. Red Bull has basically been in a state of driver chaos since Ricciardo left. Ricciardo and Lawson were hired with the express intent to drop Checo as soon as they could. Maybe that’s why De Vries was hired even. If they had a good replacement that wouldn’t shake things up with Max, he’d have been gone before 24 if not then absolutely at the summer break. Hence them desperately promoting a guy with 11 race starts. They’ve been sick of Checo for a while now I’d say. He lucked out in having an extremely dominant car and nobody in line.
If they go with Lawson over Tsunoda then Yuki needs to get out of the RB team asap as they clearly don't rate him despite him clearly doing more than enough.
In major motorsport classes (4 and 2-wheeled) it mainly happens in "the top two inches". Sorry, I'm old school but it's proven again and again that mental toughness and intellect is the determining factor of the last tenths. Liam looks pretty organised in his head and appears to have a certain youthful toughness. I can't say I see the same characteristics in Yuki, who, while talented, has deficiency of character. We have this year, still seen signs of the crazy boy in him. It's Liam for me, but a very, very tough gig.
How times have changed. Autosport along with Motoring (or Motorsport) News were my go to every week after the previous weekends GP for all the tech news and F1 gossip in the 80's & 90's. Autosport's premium quality images on premium quality paper were a joy to behold. I'm pretty sure that I've got some past issues that covered significant events like Senna's crash hidden away in some corner of my attic. The issue I looked forward to was always the last issue preceding the first GP of the season. All the new technical innovations and liveries were revealed in that particular issue. I hope Autosport continues with it's superb content and that going monthly isn't some indication of the demise of the publication in the future.
They should have let Danny Ric have a chance 5 or 6 races ago and that would have given Lawson more races at RB. OR RB could have kept Danny Ric and paired him with Lawson and given Yuki 5 or 6 races to prove he could compete in the Redbull.
I still think that the new regulations should be microhybrid, where the power train is built around a V8 or V10, but teams can add 40 kg of motors+batteries. It would encourage teams to come up with lighter batteries and motors however they see fit, but electrification won't dominate the car. It's kind of what you see with modern cars. Teams will still be encouraged to squeeze the most out of the limited weight budget if 40 kg for battery and motor, and the electronics will help, but they won't necessarily make or break the car. It would also help in significantly reducing the weight since they can only have 40 kg (or whatever they choose) of batteries and electric motors. This would encourage innovation without ruining the sport and would keep the cars closer to the hybrids coming out in the future. The cost cap will make sure things don't get out of hand spending wise. I would postpone the new rules a year or two and scrap the current 2026 plans for the microhybrid plan. I'm not sure if the V8 or V10 should be naturally aspirated or not.
Yeah, the politics of the big EV push is stalling. F1 have followed the money but the money is nowadays government subsidies - a distorted market. EVs (and other factors) have bankrupted the VW group. One should be very careful about going over this cliff and what you suggest is very pragmatic while playing to the "sustainable" wokies who know little about science and engineering. I fear for the future of F1 on it's present hybrid trajectory.
Question: Of the several potential teammates he could have had for 2025 (Carlos, Franco, Liam, Sergio, Yuki, etc.) whom do you think would have given Max the hardest time, and did this play a part in Red Bull’s eventual choice?
Your "wasted tires" article is absurd. Each car should get 4 sets of each compound for FP1, 4 more go FP2, and FP3, equaling 36 sets for practice. Qualifying needs 4 sets of softs for Q1, 4 sets of softs for Q2, then 3 sets of softs for Q3. Then the race gets 3 sets of their choosing. 50 sets of tires per car is very reasonable.
There is no rebadging of Honda by RBPT, all 4 Red Bull cars since 2023 say "HONDA" on the side of the engine covers on all their race suits. Yuki is likely to follow Honda to Aston in 2026, in what capacity however is the question with Lance Stroll still on the team? This is a big reason why Red Bull isn't interested in promoting him since he won't be on the team beyond 2025.
Strollowich will either be scripted an F1 win or Strollowich senior will sell the team to the Saudis. The story of "Aston F1" is important to learn how the world works. Strollowich got the team for cheap after the banks (owned by Strollowich kind) revoked the loans to Racing Point/Force India.
@@realshompa Stroll doesn't own the team alone, he leads a consortium of rich friends who invested heavily in the team, they will want an return on investment, not just a vehicle for Stroll Jr to play in. Factor in Adrian Newey and Honda have joined them, which neither would unless Aston Martin had a serious plan going forward. I don't expect Stroll Jr to be on the team when they get serious.
how did you state 2010 with Jenson button his worse season as well? only reason Jenson beat him on points was lewis had a few DNFs otherwise he was generally the faster and ahead of him on track.
People that root for Yuki need to understand that Red Bull doesn't fully own his contact. It is still tied to Honda and Honda has one year left with Red Bull.
Red Bull’s leadership is horrendously bad & toxic… they don’t want equal success for everyone in the team. It’s a one driver team where you’ll be punished & isolated for challenging the status quo, BUT simultaneously they always present that internal struggle as 'underperformance' by the second driver, because they’ve had the best F1 car designs for most of their history. I suspect they’ll be exposed in the future having to build their own car/engine, without Adrian Newey & Honda’s brainpower propping up their terrible leadership.
Absolutely Hulk is still a great driver and a safe pair of hands. But they need to show they’re pulling from their junior team or their system is failing (which I think it is anyway).
This isn’t a 2nd seat available… this is a who can help max win the world championship seat…. A very odd thing to replace! That’s why Perez was always considered as he plays ball? Also Hence why Lando didn’t go if your half a driver you want to win … and most teams up and down the grid don’t have a number 2 driver apart from RB Going to be very interesting season 😅
The 1-2 driver structure is just too good of a strategy for championship wins, teams have done it for decades now. Teams without such a structure always lose to those that do unless they build a dominant car.
Yuki deserves that seat. The only thing holding him back is racist Japanese infantilization. Yuki has consistently out performed his teammates and deserves a seat at Red Bull.
I actually think it is Verstappen who does not want an aggressive driver in the second car. I hope for Yuki. He has the talent and for the viewing public, aggressive drivers are more fun. And Yuki could introduce the world to the Japanese Idol system.
Liam will do well
While I understand the reasoning for Perez no longer being Red Bulls number 2, I just do not understand the apparent contempt and dislike towards him. Everyone was disappointed that Danny Ric was booted, with Perez it seems to be the opposite but when you compare their F1 career stats, they are extremely similar.
Agreed 100%
Nah Perez had always had at worst 2nd best car over the season but mostly the best car. He almost got chased down by Hamilton in 2023 in in the 3rd best car when that redbull car lost one race in the championship. Ricciardo had on occasion the quickest or near quickest car and capitalised on opportunities, Perez had the opportunity on so many more occassions and failed.
Prime Ricciardo was way better than prime Checo. Ricciardo had a Red Bull that was 3rd best most days. Checo’s Red Bulls were some of the most dominant cars in history. When you look at it through that lens, Ricciardo looks really good, and Checo looks really bad. I think people have forgotten how good Daniel was. He was top 5 best drivers in F1 for a solid 4 or 5 years. And arguably the best driver in 1 or 2 years. I’ll echo what Kevin said, Checo is an amazing driver, but he never reached those heights, and even when given the best car, just clearly wasn’t good enough for the top. Add on top of that, he was hogging a top seat for far too long, not even sort of bringing the fight to Max, and cost RB the constructor’s title. Whereas what did Daniel do, do terribly in a couple midfield cars having no effect on the top at all? Thats the difference. I won’t blow smoke, Daniel’s personality bough him a huge amount of time. And some people are getting a little too excited & personal with the Checo critiques. But he did score 49 points in what like 12 races? I mean it literally couldn’t have been worse.
Go Liam! Toughest drive in 2025, he's had to come in mid season 2023/2024 ...shown fight and he has got the talent...get behind this guy
Agreed.
Full respect to Lawson if he can survive, compete, and deliver the expectations put upon him by RBR.
Big shark tank this one ..
@@nickwilder7722 apparently the Mexican hate-machine has been cracked to 10 and young Liam has been vilified even before anything has been announced.
Trump needs to build that wall .. then export
if F1 want's to drop a race. Miami would be my first pick.
Never going to happen, Europe will lose races first.
I'd be fine with realistically any of Miami, Jeddah, Imola, and Qatar being binned, preferably all 4. They certainly inflate an already stacked calendar without adding much that other tracks don't already do better.
Monaco's is my favourite to ditch but keep Austin and get rid of the other American ones would be good. Spa, Suzuka, Silverstone and Baku are the ones they shouldn't consider so it'll probably be one of them.
See this is the problem with media lot... When a driver is released during the season, "oh redbull are so unfair", they give Checo every chance including a new contract to help his confidence, "oh they should have fired him already!"... People forget Checo did help the team win in previous years, so it wasn't as cut and dry. But it was the correct decision to release him no that the season has ended.
Agreed, his last 6 months were horrible. Nowhere close to the level he was at in 2020-2023. And the media has been even worse then Checo was but for them that's their norm. Pretty disgusting.
Many of the media sources who have been calling repeatedly for Checo's head on a pike are already saying "was it right to sack him?" It's all clicks these days and stats spread out over many GPs don't lie, Checo has totally lost his confidence. Why he can't realise it for himself is quite sad.
Checo staying had nothing to do with Checo. Red Bull has basically been in a state of driver chaos since Ricciardo left. Ricciardo and Lawson were hired with the express intent to drop Checo as soon as they could. Maybe that’s why De Vries was hired even. If they had a good replacement that wouldn’t shake things up with Max, he’d have been gone before 24 if not then absolutely at the summer break. Hence them desperately promoting a guy with 11 race starts. They’ve been sick of Checo for a while now I’d say. He lucked out in having an extremely dominant car and nobody in line.
If they go with Lawson over Tsunoda then Yuki needs to get out of the RB team asap as they clearly don't rate him despite him clearly doing more than enough.
In major motorsport classes (4 and 2-wheeled) it mainly happens in "the top two inches". Sorry, I'm old school but it's proven again and again that mental toughness and intellect is the determining factor of the last tenths. Liam looks pretty organised in his head and appears to have a certain youthful toughness. I can't say I see the same characteristics in Yuki, who, while talented, has deficiency of character. We have this year, still seen signs of the crazy boy in him. It's Liam for me, but a very, very tough gig.
Mismanagement from Horner waiting that long .
How times have changed. Autosport along with Motoring (or Motorsport) News were my go to every week after the previous weekends GP for all the tech news and F1 gossip in the 80's & 90's. Autosport's premium quality images on premium quality paper were a joy to behold. I'm pretty sure that I've got some past issues that covered significant events like Senna's crash hidden away in some corner of my attic. The issue I looked forward to was always the last issue preceding the first GP of the season. All the new technical innovations and liveries were revealed in that particular issue. I hope Autosport continues with it's superb content and that going monthly isn't some indication of the demise of the publication in the future.
Is Kevin awake ?
They should have let Danny Ric have a chance 5 or 6 races ago and that would have given Lawson more races at RB. OR RB could have kept Danny Ric and paired him with Lawson and given Yuki 5 or 6 races to prove he could compete in the Redbull.
Yep, right with you.
Should have replaced SP after Spa with Danny Ric, put in Lawson earlier in the season.
100%
I still think that the new regulations should be microhybrid, where the power train is built around a V8 or V10, but teams can add 40 kg of motors+batteries. It would encourage teams to come up with lighter batteries and motors however they see fit, but electrification won't dominate the car. It's kind of what you see with modern cars. Teams will still be encouraged to squeeze the most out of the limited weight budget if 40 kg for battery and motor, and the electronics will help, but they won't necessarily make or break the car. It would also help in significantly reducing the weight since they can only have 40 kg (or whatever they choose) of batteries and electric motors. This would encourage innovation without ruining the sport and would keep the cars closer to the hybrids coming out in the future. The cost cap will make sure things don't get out of hand spending wise. I would postpone the new rules a year or two and scrap the current 2026 plans for the microhybrid plan. I'm not sure if the V8 or V10 should be naturally aspirated or not.
Yeah, the politics of the big EV push is stalling. F1 have followed the money but the money is nowadays government subsidies - a distorted market. EVs (and other factors) have bankrupted the VW group. One should be very careful about going over this cliff and what you suggest is very pragmatic while playing to the "sustainable" wokies who know little about science and engineering. I fear for the future of F1 on it's present hybrid trajectory.
Question: Of the several potential teammates he could have had for 2025 (Carlos, Franco, Liam, Sergio, Yuki, etc.) whom do you think would have given Max the hardest time, and did this play a part in Red Bull’s eventual choice?
Your "wasted tires" article is absurd. Each car should get 4 sets of each compound for FP1, 4 more go FP2, and FP3, equaling 36 sets for practice. Qualifying needs 4 sets of softs for Q1, 4 sets of softs for Q2, then 3 sets of softs for Q3. Then the race gets 3 sets of their choosing. 50 sets of tires per car is very reasonable.
There is no rebadging of Honda by RBPT, all 4 Red Bull cars since 2023 say "HONDA" on the side of the engine covers on all their race suits. Yuki is likely to follow Honda to Aston in 2026, in what capacity however is the question with Lance Stroll still on the team? This is a big reason why Red Bull isn't interested in promoting him since he won't be on the team beyond 2025.
Strollowich will either be scripted an F1 win or Strollowich senior will sell the team to the Saudis. The story of "Aston F1" is important to learn how the world works. Strollowich got the team for cheap after the banks (owned by Strollowich kind) revoked the loans to Racing Point/Force India.
@@realshompa Stroll doesn't own the team alone, he leads a consortium of rich friends who invested heavily in the team, they will want an return on investment, not just a vehicle for Stroll Jr to play in. Factor in Adrian Newey and Honda have joined them, which neither would unless Aston Martin had a serious plan going forward. I don't expect Stroll Jr to be on the team when they get serious.
Why was Albon fired for Perez? I wish all journalists and internet experts behind that decision would Suffah.
Williams must build a usable car that is not so dangerous and crash prone.
I think you'll find that with a different driver there will be fewer crashes.
how did you state 2010 with Jenson button his worse season as well? only reason Jenson beat him on points was lewis had a few DNFs otherwise he was generally the faster and ahead of him on track.
I don't believe that Perez has forgotten how to drive a racecar quickly. With that in mind, are any of the other options faster ?
Only time will tell I guess but being 270 points behind your teammate is pretty appalling.
Stroll might actually do better than that.
Not a Max fan but for me it’s obvious Checo’s performance dropped much more than Max’s after the (real or not) “brake detail”.
Albon was faster. Perez sells Tacos together with Tito Santana.
If McLaren had backed Norris to the hilt up to Brazil, would Verstappen still win the 2024 driver’s title?
People that root for Yuki need to understand that Red Bull doesn't fully own his contact. It is still tied to Honda and Honda has one year left with Red Bull.
Honda said they would support him at any team that would have him as a personal sponsor
It needs to be Yuki next to max. If not the best seat I can see Yuki getting any time soon would be the Aston or alpine
Finally
Perez and ricciardo blew it, they didnt perform. I dont hate them, but if Iwas their boss they’d be replaced.
redbull dont want to spark rivalry with verstappen but they need points for constructors. so i think liam lawson will be next driver
Red Bull’s leadership is horrendously bad & toxic… they don’t want equal success for everyone in the team. It’s a one driver team where you’ll be punished & isolated for challenging the status quo, BUT simultaneously they always present that internal struggle as 'underperformance' by the second driver, because they’ve had the best F1 car designs for most of their history.
I suspect they’ll be exposed in the future having to build their own car/engine, without Adrian Newey & Honda’s brainpower propping up their terrible leadership.
About time! Red Bull should have put Hulkenberg in the car, Perez was an absolute disaster this year.
Absolutely Hulk is still a great driver and a safe pair of hands.
But they need to show they’re pulling from their junior team or their system is failing (which I think it is anyway).
He was no Patrese 🙄
Red Bulls long nightmare is over worst pay driver in f1 history 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Get rid of Vegas, it ruins my vacations there.
I wish Checo well I am sure he will land on his feet and thrive somewhere.
Just announced Lawson gets the seat
This isn’t a 2nd seat available… this is a who can help max win the world championship seat…. A very odd thing to replace!
That’s why Perez was always considered as he plays ball?
Also Hence why Lando didn’t go if your half a driver you want to win … and most teams up and down the grid don’t have a number 2 driver apart from RB
Going to be very interesting season 😅
The 1-2 driver structure is just too good of a strategy for championship wins, teams have done it for decades now. Teams without such a structure always lose to those that do unless they build a dominant car.
2007 is a classic for 2 top drivers fighting it out but neither winning the championship.
Although it’s great for the constructors.
Sorry for Perez but please not Lawson
for all those that make the Helmut Marko's and Verstappen clan work, before speak try not to have the underware dirty...
they treated him so badly
Yeah they even gave him a new millions of dollars contract in the hope he would do better.
Hamilton is washed
Sky money will fix that, just like Sky 1 billion a year to Liberty media scripted Hamilton 7 "world champions". F1 is like pro-wrestling. Scripted.
Tsunoda
Yuki deserves that seat. The only thing holding him back is racist Japanese infantilization. Yuki has consistently out performed his teammates and deserves a seat at Red Bull.
I actually think it is Verstappen who does not want an aggressive driver in the second car. I hope for Yuki. He has the talent and for the viewing public, aggressive drivers are more fun. And Yuki could introduce the world to the Japanese Idol system.
lawson is overrated and hot tempered. yuki out performs lawson in lawson in every race
Bring back Daniel Riccardo!!!
Lol why. He would be just Perez 2. Imho Bottas would be better, but only as a short term fix.