The fight to take Sergio Perez's Red Bull F1 seat

Another F1 weekend featuring another qualifying crash, and Sergio Perez has just one more race to convince Red Bull not to drop him mid-season ahead of critical talks in the F1 summer break.

Red Bull's points lead was slashed by McLaren at the Hungarian Grand Prix and its need to close out the constructors' championship in particular is why a drastic driver change is being so seriously considered for the rest of 2024.

Nothing is being decided before the August break so Perez does still have the Belgian GP to build on the shoots of recovery seen in Hungary, where he produced what Red Bull feels was his best race performance in three months to recover from 16th to seventh.

But the fact he needed to recover at all means his team bosses are still far from convinced he can be the reliable driver they need alongside Max Verstappen to win both championships this season. So who else is in contention?

00:00 Introduction
01:49 The safe pick
03:57 The wildcard
06:11 The 2025 outsider
08:02 Could Perez be kept on?

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[stevieboy]

That “crash damage” comment made about Tsunoda is absolutely wild. He’s crashed once this year and didn’t crash out in the entirety of 2023. Ridiculous and outdated comments.

[WZEL]

The absolute stubbornness of never considering Tsunoda as a candidate for the main team is completely ridiculous. Any other driver would have been promoted by now with those performances, Horner needs to swallow his pride and accept he's wrong. Poor Yuki.

[joeywykoff]

The fact that Yuki isn't option #1 is asinine. Yuki has consistently gotten points in a mid at best car for years. His attitude has gotten better and more manageable, and saying he's a crash liability is wild to me. He had a single qualy crash this year, and I don't recall him crashing at all last year.

[DaveMcKeegan]

RB constructors position can't afford to keep Perez, he's been too poor for too long - Lawson is too inexperienced for the RB seat and Riccardo hasn't shown the consistency for it at VCarb, I'd put Yuki in Perez's seat and put Lawson in the Vcarb for the rest of the season, then decide where to place them all next year at the end of the season

[ChefJeff]

It sucks that Yuki isn't even being considered. He's the more consistent driver, in what is supposed to be an unforgiving car.

[serapeach]

I know they won't put Yuki there but that's who I want to see in the red bull for the last half of the season

[MrGten]

If they pick lawson over yuki then whats the point of the junior team?

[bornresaabe]

Does Yuki deserve a shot? Absolutely. But it seems like most of you don't realize how big of a jump it is, especially in this particular scenario of jumping in half way through the season. It's a whole new ball game of added pressure to perform in top teams fighting for championships. Not just that, you have to perform against someone like Max, it's massive. Look at all the other very solid drivers who have been promoted and failed (Albon, Gasly, Perez). Especially considering it's for the 2nd half of the season. If Yuki doesn't perform it could literally ruin his season and he could end up fighting to stay on the grid. just like what happened to the other guys before him.

The logical choice here for this particular scenario is Daniel Ricciardo. He's won 7 races in that exact car before. He is proven to perform with the extra added pressure of being in a top team and against Max. I would argue this is the case even this year as all his best results have literally come when he's been under the most pressure. The car is suited to his driving style. He's in a do or die part of his career now, why not give him that one last chance in the car that made him a legend to begin with. If it doesn't work out, he can retire at the end of the year. Then Red Bull can see Tsunoda vs Lawson up against each other for the remainder of the year and see who can replace Ricciardo for 2025. It's a much better situation for both Lawson and Tsunoda being able to have a pre-season testing and a fresh year to show what they have rather than jumping in now.

[foxmind]

I would love Yuki to get the spot with Red Bull and then Lawson going to RB to develop. Yuki has more than earned his spot in my view. He has matured so much

[ireeeebz]

Daniel Ricciardo since he's comeback to VCARB
- Hungary, disaster strategy
- Silverstone, Engine issues and bad quali strategy
- Canada, Clutch issues and undeserved penalty
- Monaco, unwanted set up changes by the team
- Imola, Disaster strategy
- Miami, Wrong set of tires
- China, Stroll
- Japan, Albon
- Australia, Bad call from the team out in Q1
- Abu Dhabi, Debris in brake duct
- Brazil, Flying wheel
- Mexico, Bad tire choice from the team
- USA, Debris in brake duct and bad strategy from the team
- Zandvoort, Broken wrist
- Hungary '23, Zhou crashed into him dropping him to last


There's more to the story than Yuki's handful more points

[haarshitsukumar]

I dearly hope Tsunoda gets a shot at the Redbull seat after the summer break. Meanwhile Lawson and Ricciardo can have a shoot out in RB for the Redbull seat for next season.

[Smithy]

Would love to see Yuki get the seat. It’s so hard to gauge how much progress he has made since his poor rookie season and a drive in a top team would tell us a lot

[jasepaul]

IMO, Tsunoda is the best person for the seat and should be promoted. He's by far the best candidate. Promoting Ricciardo would just be compounding the issue of giving Perez a new contract. The crash damage comment about Tsunoda is ridiculous, Perez has been involved in way more crashes than Tsunoda

[Biggspeed]

I don’t understand how Perez is still in. They didn’t give Albon or Gasley anything close to that much patience.

[Bongodudeguy]

Yuki has that DAWG in him. Get him in a car next to the strap on, so they can both push each other to higher levels.

[LeftCoragem]

Tsunoda not been considered for that seat is shameful.

[aluwanimoyo]

If they can't trust Tsunoda, then what the hell is Marko there for? Haven't they been "developing" him all these years? It's time to give Tsunoda his chance.

[Samps]

I cannot fucking wait for this whole 2nd RB seat drama to be done with.

[foolofatook]

I want Yuki at Red Bull. He would definitely match Max on team radio meltdowns.

[RdyMixFlapjacks]

Be interesting to see what the outcome would be with Tsunoda driving the 2nd RB, I want to see it.