2024 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[venkyhere]

The whole Ricciardo reloaded stuff was just a waste of time. If it was not clear after McLaren that he was done, it should have been clear after the first few races at AlphaTauri.

Agree with you completely, it was all based on some filming day run post Silverstone-2023 and Horner decided, that was that. Based on a sample size of 1.

They should have had Lawson in the car since last year so now they would have data if he can get next to Max or not (+experience for Lawson).

Now it's clear that neither Ric nor Tsunoda is ideal for the big team and Lawson is still an unknown so there are only bad options available.

Perez is a lost cause anyway. I was the guy who defended him the most when he got the new contract, saying
(i) he deserves one last chance, as 'experience' will kick in at some point
(ii) not-rocking-the-boat is pretty important, considering 2025 is the last year of current regs anyway
(iii) Redbull care more about WDC than WCC

But the way his control over the car has simply 'sunk' is mind-boggling. Being 0.8 to 1s slower than teammate in quali - that difference doesn't exist even in Williams with Sargeant, I dont remember it was this bad when Russel-Latifi were a pair. There is no excuse for Perez. No, there isn't. The last straw has been chewed up.

However, all is not lost.
Lawson is the ideal candidate to be given 1/2 a season to prove. Even if he scores a few scattered points here and there, it wouldn't be any different to what can be expected from Perez anyway.
Moreover, Lawson looked pretty racy and clever in his tussles with Tsunoda for a brief while last season. It's the perfect opportunity to try him. May be he turns out to be a hidden gem, and if so, perfect for the #2 driver - young, will not demand equal treatment, home-grown driver in the starting phase of career so will be in 'gratitude mode' for atleast the next 2 years.

[Dunlay]

Thing is with Lawson, you could almost say that this is how it’s going to be if you offer a seat.

He hasn’t got a f1 seat at the minute so if redbull said we can give you a f1 seat, but this is the terms…. Would Lawson take it? Would be beneficial for him

Not just Lawson, most drivers on the grid would take the Red Bull seat with whatever terms they offer it with.

But the question is, why would Red Bull want to compromise Lawson's interests for Max? No team ever hired or hires any driver with a designated No.2 specified in the contract or that the No.2 driver should be subservient to No.1. Usually the more talented of the two prevails and team naturally drifts towards him. They should put Yuki or Lawson in the second seat with full freedom to challenge Max, "IF they can". Contractual terms shouldn't limit a driver's ability. It's unethical if not outrightly illegal.

[basti313]

But the question is, why would Red Bull want to compromise Lawson's interests for Max? ....They should pContractual terms shouldn't limit a driver's ability. It's unethical if not outrightly illegal.

Absolutely. I think there is a lot of nonsense floating around. Like "pleasing Max"...or Nr. 2 contracts. Max is not very pleased by Perez since the Monaco incident and made it quite clear. Still it does not mean anything. And he always said he does not care who is in the second car. Same for Nr.2 contracts...in contrast it seems the last Perez contract had a contradicting clause that offered him the same car as Max, only since they signed the new contract Max got an upgrade earlier.

The simple issue is that they have a very difficult choice to make:
- With Yuki or Daniel they do not win anything. The likelihood of both bottling Q1 and driving around P10 is same as for Perez. Sorry, I can not see what they should bring performance wise. So RedBull will only loose a load of sponsor money with a unlikely improvement.
- Lawson is the right guy to bring. Why put him into the RB if the second driver is not winning points anyways? And they need to build him up as Merc will build Antoinelli for 2026.
- Still...the question is why keep Ricciardo in the current shape. The logical swap would be Lawson for Ric after Spa. Then swap Law and Per next summer...would hold sponsor money for another year. The issue is...they most probably need a second replacement till 2026 if Perez does not want to play at RB.

[SirBastianVettel]

Isn’t it obvious that Red Bull doesn’t consider Lawson to be a top tier driver? I wouldn’t be surprised if he never gets a seat in F1 with Red Bull, I think there’s a bigger chance of seeing Hadjar in F1 than Lawson.

[Sergej]

Max will be looking veeeeeery carefully at how the next upgrades will deliver and how good Mercedes will be in the next races.

[Alexf1]

I think if they are thinking about replacing Perez mid season you can expect that all 3 VCRB drivers have driven the RB20 next to the VCARB in the simulator by now. Cause up until now the strong front end characteristic of the Red Bull car has, time and time again, not been a match with the 2nd driver

[Wouter]

Isn’t it obvious that Red Bull doesn’t consider Lawson to be a top tier driver?

I wouldn’t be surprised if he never gets a seat in F1 with Red Bull, I think there’s a bigger chance of seeing Hadjar in F1 than Lawson.

.
It's a pity that you have not substantiated your differing opinion with arguments.
Apparently you didn't see how Liam performed as a rookie in Super Formula last season.
Defeated very experienced SF drivers and narrowly missed the Championship in the last race.
He has the talent to adapt to any car very quickly. He showed that in Japan and in Zandvoort.
Apparently you didn't see his unexpected appearance on the technically difficult Zandvoort circuit last year either.
That boy has much more talent than Hadjar, who is also a reasonable driver.
So my question is whether you want to substantiate your opinion.

[basti313]

Isn’t it obvious that Red Bull doesn’t consider Lawson to be a top tier driver? I wouldn’t be surprised if he never gets a seat in F1 with Red Bull, I think there’s a bigger chance of seeing Hadjar in F1 than Lawson.

If this would be the case, he would not be at RedBull as reserve driver.

[SirBastianVettel]

.
It's a pity that you have not substantiated your differing opinion with arguments.
Apparently you didn't see how Liam performed as a rookie in Super Formula last season.
Defeated very experienced SF drivers and narrowly missed the Championship in the last race.
He has the talent to adapt to any car very quickly. He showed that in Japan and in Zandvoort.
Apparently you didn't see his unexpected appearance on the technically difficult Zandvoort circuit last year either.
That boy has much more talent than Hadjar, who is also a reasonable driver.
So my question is whether you want to substantiate your opinion.

I'm not saying that Lawson hasn't been impressive, but if Red Bull thought he was a Verstappen-level talent they wouldn't have kept him on the sideline for this long imo. It doesn't make sense to me that they would choose Ricciardo over Lawson if they really think he is the real deal. If you ask me Red Bull is only interested in finding a Verstappen like talent for when Max decides to leave. Everyone else is just filler.

[SirBastianVettel]

If this would be the case, he would not be at RedBull as reserve driver.

Do you mean this from Lawson's perspective or Red Bull's? Lawson doesn't have any other options while he is still contracted by Red Bull. And for Red Bull he is a fine reserve driver, but I doubt more than that.

[AtlasZX]

Max is the teams main interest (rightly so) and what Max wants, Max gets.

He wants a mediocre team mate that won’t take points, poles or wins from him. So my vote is they will use Daniel. They don’t want an unknown that might be fast such as Lawson.

This is also a mistake from RBR, Max is definetly a great driver, but if he suddently leaves (like Vettel did in 2014) for whatever reasons, they won't have many other options. they will have Perez-Ricciardo or Perez-Lawson, and both options currently looks awfull.
To be clear, I don't think he will, but in F1 you need options bcs random stuff always happens.

[Wouter]

.
It's a pity that you have not substantiated your differing opinion with arguments.
Apparently you didn't see how Liam performed as a rookie in Super Formula last season.
Defeated very experienced SF drivers and narrowly missed the Championship in the last race.
He has the talent to adapt to any car very quickly. He showed that in Japan and in Zandvoort.
Apparently you didn't see his unexpected appearance on the technically difficult Zandvoort circuit last year either.
That boy has much more talent than Hadjar, who is also a reasonable driver.
So my question is whether you want to substantiate your opinion.

I'm not saying that Lawson hasn't been impressive, but if Red Bull thought he was a Verstappen-level talent they wouldn't have kept him on the sideline for this long imo.

It doesn't make sense to me that they would choose Ricciardo over Lawson if they really think he is the real deal.

If you ask me Red Bull is only interested in finding a Verstappen like talent for when Max decides to leave. Everyone else is just filler.

.

I'm not saying Lawson hasn't been impressive, but if Red Bull thought he was a Verstappen-level talent they wouldn't have kept him on the sidelines for so long.

.
Horner and Marko already said last year that they would not loan Liam to another team this year because they wanted him
to drive some races this year. Probably with the idea of ​​replacing Ricciardo or Perez if he performed well.
.

It doesn't make sense to me that they would choose Ricciardo over Lawson if they really think he's the real deal.

.
Who says they will choose Ricciardo over Lawson? No one has indicated that Ricciardo will get Perez's seat.
Ricciardo is performing far below par in a midfield team. Liam is performing a lot better.
.

If you ask me, Red Bull is only interested in finding a Verstappen-like talent for when Max decides to leave.
All others are just filler.

.
Strange comment "All others are just filler".

[basti313]

Max is the teams main interest (rightly so) and what Max wants, Max gets.

He wants a mediocre team mate that won’t take points, poles or wins from him. So my vote is they will use Daniel. They don’t want an unknown that might be fast such as Lawson.

This is also a mistake from RBR, Max is definetly a great driver, but if he suddently leaves (like Vettel did in 2014) for whatever reasons, they won't have many other options. they will have Perez-Ricciardo or Perez-Lawson, and both options currently looks awfull.
To be clear, I don't think he will, but in F1 you need options bcs random stuff always happens.

I think this is nonsense again repeating on the point that Max has a say in the second driver. He repeated several times he does not care and he does not have a good relationship with Perez anymore.

The rest still stands true. If Max leaves, they have a problem. (As any other team when the best driver leaves.)
The approach is and was always difficult to get a top driver out of your youth team. Imagine Real Madrid would try to mainly fill up from their youth...
But...I do not see him "suddenly" leaving. This would mean that the contract is not worth the paper. Which means other drivers have the same option, so they will just hunt another top driver.

If this would be the case, he would not be at RedBull as reserve driver.

Do you mean this from Lawson's perspective or Red Bull's? Lawson doesn't have any other options while he is still contracted by Red Bull. And for Red Bull he is a fine reserve driver, but I doubt more than that.

They are building and backing him since years, paying expensive drives for him. DTM and SuperFormula was VERY costly. Flying him around the world as reserve is also costly (while they would have alternatives in F2 and RB). They spend a lot of money on this guy.
To be honest, I do not see him much different from a Piastri. He just needs the seat.

But I also see your point:
They claimed that they want Ricciardo as benchmark at RB. Last season was no benchmark with only 5 consecutive races and this season is a bit of a up and down. But they will have done benchmarking in the summer. If they do not put Lawson in one of the cars latest next year I agree on your point that he is done and not worth a seat.

[AR3-GP]

Budapest update doc: "Circuit specific camera bump"

[venkyhere]

Budapest update doc: "Circuit specific camera bump"

I've learnt not to take at face value whatever Marko (and Horner) reveal about 'potency of updates' ahead of actually bolting them onto the car and seeing the laptimes. Because, though privy to what the actual updates aim to achieve, ultimately they aren't tech people ; and being at the top of the RedBull food chain, have proclivity to indulge in 'marketing-talk' , 'mind games' , 'maintaining an image' etc etc.

The old adage 'the stopwatch doesn't lie' is to be remembered.