Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo stay: Conclusions from shock Red Bull decision

After weeks of intense speculation, Red Bull confirmed this week that Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo will stay exactly where they are entering the second half of the F1 2024 season.

Ah, well. It was fun while it lasted…

Conclusions: Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo stay

For teams of Red Bull’s stature, the Constructors’ Championship is nothing more than a nice bonus

Time for a quick quiz?

Question one (of, er, one): who won the Formula 1 World Championship in 2008 and 2021?

If you answered Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, correct.

But also not quite right, because you could have said Ferrari and Mercedes, who took the Constructors’ title in those respective seasons. Yet the fact that you (probably) didn’t answer Ferrari and Mercedes first tells you all you need to know about how both F1 Championships compare.

All the prestige, all the glory, in this sport will forever be associated with the Drivers’ Championship.

The Constructors’? It’s a good one to win and it looks great as the cherry on the top of a successful season, yet always has – and always will – exist in the shadow of the big one.

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For some years now the real importance of the Constructors’ Championship has been found towards the back, where position changes really do have a material effect on a team’s ability to develop the car for the following season and impact the organisation’s overall wellbeing and future prospects.

For teams of Red Bull’s stature, it has become nothing more than a nice bonus – literally so in the case of the on-the-ground workforce – at the end of the year.

So, yes, Red Bull’s decision to retain Perez may well have just handed the initiative to McLaren – now just 42 points behind and, crucially, with both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri making significant and consistent contributions – in the teams’ title race.

Yet how much would it really matter in the grander scheme of things if Red Bull were to lose the lesser crown?

Never underestimate Perez’s role in the emergence of Max Verstappen as one of the greatest drivers in F1 history over recent years, affording Max the platform – the breathing space – to reach up and touch the sky.

By being Sergio Perez – slow, inconsistent and uninspiring – he allows Max Verstappen to be Max Verstappen.

This dynamic has worked exceedingly well since 2021, bringing an unprecedented level of success to the team, and it is one Red Bull have always been wary of throwing away unless they absolutely must.

If that determination to preserve it has to extend to conceding the Constructors’ title, then so be it.

Red Bull can’t keep hoping for Sergio Perez to fix himself

The 2024 Constructors’ title may be a price Red Bull are prepared to pay, but what if Perez’s lack of contribution starts to put Verstappen’s own reign at increased risk?

That’s when they won’t be able to ignore it anymore. That’s the point at which they will have to intervene.

With a 78-point advantage over Lando Norris, Verstappen should – provided there are no more meltdown afternoons like Hungary – almost certainly secure a fourth consecutive title over the remaining 10 races of 2024.

But what about next year?

The likely, mouthwatering narrative of F1 2025 is one of a weakening Red Bull still reeling from the loss of Adrian Newey, fighting with all their might to hold off a maturing McLaren with Mercedes and Ferrari, energised by the arrival of Lewis Hamilton, somewhere in the mix too.

If the fight at the front is even closer in 2025, both McLarens, Ferraris and Mercedes will gladly dive into the six-tenth (or more) gap that has often separated Verstappen and Perez on the average starting grid over recent months.

Max, brilliant as he is, might still be able to bat them off all by himself without the support of a recognised wingman. But could Red Bull really afford to take that risk?

That is why it is crucial that Perez re-emerges as an active protagonist, not just a passenger, ahead of 2025.

And if Red Bull are truly committed to making this work, they owe it to him to finally get to the bottom of why he keeps drifting into these mid-season slumps.

That Perez’s season has been allowed to follow the same pattern of 2022/23 is not just his failure but that of the team too, a sign that Red Bull have never properly understood – let alone addressed – the root of the problem.

Red Bull could ignore it to some extent in the past, almost letting Perez do his own thing when they had such a dominant car in the last two seasons.

Yet with bigger battles to come, they can no longer carry him. Hoping Perez somehow finds a way to fix himself won’t suffice anymore.

Red Bull just like having Daniel Ricciardo around the place

Here’s the thing about Ricciardo and Red Bull: they just like having him around.

Nice guy. Funny. Puts a smile on everyone’s face. Good with sponsors. Great memories. Wish he’d never left in the first place.

If there was an excuse to keep him for the second half of the season – and Ricciardo’s run of three points finishes in the six races just before the summer break, his most consistent results since his F1 comeback a year ago, came at a very good time – they were going to take it.

And if Red Bull’s shareholders really are set on returning VCARB to its Toro Rosso roots as a team to train young drivers in the very near future, they might even find another excuse to place him in the senior team yet.

Just to keep him around the place. Nice guy, funny…

Red Bull have been accused of going soft in their old age, affording more patience to both Perez and Ricciardo (as well as a raw Yuki Tsunoda in 2021/22) than other underperforming drivers over the years.

Yet the way Poor Old Nyck de Vries was dropkicked out of F1 last year to mark the second coming of Daniel was proof that those ruthless instincts remain alive and well.

The wildly opposing fates Ricciardo could have faced at the conclusion of this saga – either promoted back to Red Bull or out of F1 entirely and almost certainly for good – hinted at a split within the organisation over what exactly to do with him.

That he has been offered a lifeline with VCARB, though, confirms one of life’s truisms: be nice to people on your way up, because they’ll be so much more forgiving when you’re on the way down.

Liam Lawson’s future lies away from Red Bull

You can always tell when Red Bull have reservations about a young driver’s potential.

First they are slow to give him an opportunity. And then when the driver grasps that opportunity and exceeds expectations, they are wary of giving him another in case that one proves a step too far.

It is at times like this you recall that Carlos Sainz might never have even made it to F1 had Sebastian Vettel not decided to leave Red Bull in late 2014.

Toro Rosso, as it was then, had already confirmed Verstappen as Daniil Kvyat’s team-mate for 2015, with Sainz all set to miss out until Vettel’s bombshell move to Ferrari suddenly created room at the inn. Entire careers – lives – can turn on such moments.

See also Pierre Gasly, who was made to wait for nearly 12 whole months to make his Formula 1 debut after winning the prestigious GP2 (now F2) title in 2016.

And when he confirmed Red Bull’s initial fears with a quite disastrous stint as Verstappen’s team-mate in 2019, it did not matter what he did in the little AlphaTauri from then on as Red Bull were never – not in a million years – giving him another shot.

Sainz and Gasly have carved out respectable careers elsewhere, having both eventually accepted there was a limit to their ambitions inside the Red Bull system.

The same realisation should now hit Liam Lawson, who must see the writing on the wall after being overlooked for a second time in less than 12 months.

With Red Bull and VCARB technically only committing to Perez and Ricciardo until after the summer break, it may be that Lawson is handed a run of races before 2024 is out, or potentially a full-time seat for 2025.

Yet even if he were to impress again, just as he did with such coolness and poise in his five-race cameo in mid-2023, would he really stand a chance of banishing Red Bull’s lingering doubts and becoming a serious contender to join the senior team in the years to come?

The emergence this year of Isack Hadjar, the clear F2 championship leader, and Arvid Lindblad, Red Bull’s newest teenage dream, has only heightened the risk of Lawson being lost in the crowd.

Better for him – and, for that matter, Tsunoda, still barking at the moon that if anyone deserves a Red Bull seat it’s him – to find a long-term home somewhere else.

Rumours persist that Audi, set to take over the existing Sauber team in 2026, have a serious interest in Lawson after missing out on Sainz.

And could Alpine, having also failed to hijack Sainz’s switch to Williams, possibly tempt him with the promise of a potential Mercedes engine supply for 2026 and beyond?

Helmut Marko let slip earlier this year that a clause in Lawson’s contract allows him to walk away from Red Bull entirely if he is not promoted to a full-time seat for F1 2025, with Red Bull’s option on him understood to expire in September.

Whether or not an offer comes his way, the time has come for Lawson to stop dancing to Red Bull’s tune.

It’s time for him to take control of his own destiny.

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