Perez out, Lawson in; but will Red Bull learn from its past mistakes?

The vigorous drumbeat sounding to see Sergio Perez axed by Red Bull Racing has at last stopped, with the six-time race winner and F1 veteran parting ways with the former world champions after four seasons.

A decision, as described by Red Bull’s team boss Christian Horner as Perez’s ‘own choice’, comes off the back of another dismal campaign for the 34-year old. In which a promising start, with four podiums in five races and sitting second in the driver’s standings, descended into a winless year and one where the 2023 constructor’s champions slumped to third.

“He’s decided that he’s going to take a bit of time out. Sad to see him leave the team but it’s time for him to spend with his young family as well and reflect on what he wants to do for the future,” Horner said in an interview with Sky Sports F1 following the announcement.

As documented thoroughly, Perez’s struggles rapidly outweighed the success he had achieved with Red Bull since the energy drinks giant handed him a career lifeline in 2020, when the then Racing Point outfit had unceremoniously dumped the Mexican for four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel ahead of 2021.

The five race wins and the title of ‘F1’s King of the Streets’, pales in comparison to the galling deficits between Perez and four-time world champion Max Verstappen. While a facsimile of the prodigious Dutchman wouldn’t quite be within expectations, neither should be finishing the season 285-points adrift of your teammate.

Nor being the only driver who completed the top eight in the 2024 championship to have gone without a win.

Even the historic 2023 one-two in the championship for Red Bull – a feat not previously achieved by even the likes of duo Vettel and Mark Webber – is overshadowed by the fact that Verstappen with his record 19 wins from 22 races, singlehandedly won Red Bull the constructor’s title. Outscoring Mercedes 575 to 409.

Although Verstappen, has defended his now ex-teammate saying 2024 “was difficult for Checo, but it wasn’t always his fault. We simply had a very difficult car at times.”

Perplexing too then, was Red Bull’s decision back in June to announce a fresh two-year extension to Perez’s contract. On which Horner in the Sky Sports F1 interview commented, “yes of course [it was to help his confidence]. At the time we signed it, he’d had four podiums in five races so it was a logical extension just to remove speculation of which there was already too much around the team.

“Any contract has certain performance clauses and criteria within it. It didn’t make any difference to this decision of Sergio’s to step away and take a sabbatical.”

A confusing driver strategy

We have to cast our minds back to how Perez became a Red Bull driver in the first place and how seemingly an organisation that was once lauded for being the innovators and disruptors of F1, quickly sidestepped to disrupting [or destroying] the careers of their talents.

Perez was only meant to be a stopgap solution in the Red Bull driver strategy, following the premature promotions of Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon miserably failing and seeing those two seek refuge outside of the Austrian organisation. 

The trauma of both Gasly and Albon being chewed up and spat out is still haunting, as well as a reminder of how ruthless the likes of Horner and Red Bull’s F1 Advisor Dr. Helmut Marko could be. And it is great to see their respective talents, being utilised with the likes of Alpine and Williams instead.

Logically, the stopgap years with Perez as foil to Verstappen would allow for the Faenza based sister team to Red Bull once again nurturing and training the drivers next in line for the six-time world champions. But instead, Racing Bulls nee RB nee AlphaTauri are suffering an ongoing identity crisis.

First, the irrational decision to draft in Nyck De Vries as Gasly’s replacement in 2023 when the Frenchman departed the Red Bull stable altogether – based solely off the Dutchman’s points scoring solitary outing for Williams at Monza. Then only to sack him 10 events into the year, to be replaced by Red Bull alumni Daniel Ricciardo – who after ditching them in 2018 to forge his own path – seemingly was back to try to reclaim the seat he first vacated but would have to be evaluated via AlphaTauri.

It is a relief that despite the rumours, the energy drinks giant didn’t pounce on Franco Colapinto after his promising start at Williams from the Italian Grand Prix in place of Logan Sargeant. A situation that fully had the makings of repeating the disaster that was De Vries – regardless of whatever talent the Argentine may have.  

And what of Yuki?

The elephant in the room here is Yuki Tsunoda, who started his F1 career with the Red Bull sister team at the same time Perez joined Verstappen to set about fighting for the 2021 world championship.

While the 24-year old firebrand did initially establish a reputation for being erratic and having outbursts on the radio, his performances have gradually developed. Comfortably seeing off De Vries in 10 races, before having the test of a multiple grand prix winner and the experience of Ricciardo to contend with – and again prevailing.

Tsunoda has even had the measure of Liam Lawson – who has ultimately been signed by Red Bull as the Perez replacement – in the limited races they’ve spent as teammates. Whitewashing the Kiwi 6-0 in qualifying, as well as having the upper hand in the races by 4 to 2.

Yet for the bewildering reasons of his temperament [supposedly] and technical prowess compared to 22-year old Lawson, Tsunoda has not been in the conversation to take the prized seat alongside Verstappen at Red Bull.

To this, the question ought to be as a high-performance organisation nurturing talent; isn’t that the role of Red Bull in conjunction with its sister team to continuously develop with its driver to ensure they can aspire to that higher standard?

A question rhetorical perhaps. As is the trope in F1 of the second Red Bull driver essentially being cast as a mule to the thoroughbred like its Verstappens and Vettels. The jury is still out on whether a lesson will be learnt by the multiple world champions amongst more driver drama.