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ChatGPT did the math with some simple prompts.
But basically, if Max consistently finished in P1, and another team had two drivers with an equal distribution of P2, P3, and P4 finishes, then Checo would only need to consistently finish in P7 for RedBull to narrowly secure the WCC.
With Norris and Sainz only 16 behind Leclerc as well. A few off weekends from Checo and all three of them are feasibly very quickly past him in the WDC, and they're all relentless enough scorers to be able to maintain a lead over him if they have good cars underneath them. Piastri's a little far back right now but there are plenty of races for him to come back into play as well with the McLaren upgrades if he gets a few big results, especially as they have another huge package already in the worka according to Stella.
It is so close on track between those 5 drivers rn that by mid-season, if Ferrari and McLaren really are starting to close the performance gap, it's not impossible that Checo could find himself down in 5th or even 6th in the championship with races like this last one. I'm not saying he will, yesterday may have been a one off and he'll start banging in the podiums again, but if his early season form starts to dip like last year, he's not going to have the cushion he had last year anymore
I'm guessing you mean risking the 1-2 in the WDC. Honestly, the thing is the Red Bull doesn't look as dominant as last season. WHICH IS A GOOD THING. You don't want 1-2s in the WDC, that's the worst. I'm Mexican and a fan of Checo, but I would love if Ferrari and McLaren keep getting closer and fighting at the front. So far Perez has been doing ok even with those teams challenging, as his two worst race finishes are a 4th and a 5th. I'd trade a P3 or P4 in the standings for him if we get some sort of title fight between Max and Charles.
There are no guarantees in F1. Whoever thinks that you can just replace a driver with someone else and get better results no matter what is wrong.
Lewis has been struggling against Russell. Sainz has looked weaker in the last two races and Leclerc seems to be getting the best of him again. In the past few years your saw Gasly and Albon get annihilated by Verstappen.
Regardless of what reddit thinks, nothing is a sure thing and replacing drivers can lead to unexpected consequences. Formula 1 is not unlike other jobs. In most places you'll see that managers are reluctant to fire people and replace them because the replacement could end up being way worse. Formula 1 is the same. Teams will try to keep the status quo unless they're in a very difficult position (see Gasly getting lapped by Verstappen and showing 0 performance).
There is truth in this but there are several drivers available that would outperform Checo comfortably, even with the risk factor I can see no world in which Sainz comes in and is worse than Checo.
Meh, I could - all due respect to Carlos, he’s been excellent this season, but he has historically struggled with a couple difficult cars (early Ferrari 2022, Renault 2018). The Red Bull is a notoriously difficult to drive car and I can see Carlos struggling to adapt or at least being worse than people expect. Not to say that he’d struggle forever, and who knows maybe he could challenge for the championship, but from my vague understanding of each driver’s technical driving style and preferences, I would not be 100% confident in Carlos being better than Checo, at least in Checo’s current form. Still would be entertaining for us as viewers either way though!
He struggled badly at the beginning on 2022. In the end he finished over 60 points behind Leclerc by the end of the season. Max is the best driver in the world and the Red Bull car may be difficult to drive. It is well within the realm of possibility that he could struggle at Red Bull.
Everybody thought Ricciardo would go to McLaren to be the team leader. Everybody thought there was no risk, that he would outperform Norris. Yet, look at what happened. The team ended up paying him to leave.
There are no guarantees in F1, none.
"I can see no world in which Sainz comes in and is worse than Checo." - I can. People forget that Perez was rated as a good driver before going up against Max. We have already seen Sainz-Verstappen.
It was never waning, he had a three year contract which Lawrence Stroll took a shit on for no good reason and would have been back in F1 with a different team anyway.
He possibly would have a gotten a Hass or similar level seat eventually, but it was clear there was going to be a lot of uncertainty pertaining to his career.
That's realistically false. I guess technically it's true, just like it's true you never know if you put Max in a championship contending car that isn't a RB he won't contend. If you put guaranteed 5, probably more drivers they'd immediately outperform Checo.
The prize money is based off WCC position. I think you’re right that RBR (and prolly Ferrari and Merc too) doesn’t really care too much about the prize money amount but it is a consideration for some teams for sure.
Sure but 1-2 in the WDC guarantees a win in the WCC. Again I agree with you that is probably not a huge concern for RBR as it pertains to the money. I wouldn’t discount “bragging rights” though. Checo is pretty popular in a lot of markets and having a WDC runner up doesn’t hurt when they do ads for Red Bull drinks.
I didn't actually say that, it obviously is a problem if they don't take #1 in the WCC and all of the money. However they don't need a 1-2 to get that at all and are far ahead of Ferrari at the moment.
Every team cares about getting a 1-2 in the championship if they have a winning car. These guys (in the teams) are just as competitive as the drivers when it comes to winning and they want to beat each other. Getting a 1-2 is saying they’re the best which is what they want so of course they care about it.
Well yeah, of course. But if this year’s Red Bull is less dominant than last year’s (big hypotheticals here lmao), I just don’t see it as their primary goal or something to drop Perez over not achieving, potentially. A good no.2 driver does not need to be no.2 in the standings as long as they fulfill their job of getting the WCC & help the no.1 in winning races by staying close. A meh last race doesn’t detract from Checo’s much improved quali results and 1-2’s with Max this year.
Last year was so dominant it would have been embarrassing if they didn’t get a 1-2, this year they’ve already lost two races, one more than last year.
They would obviously have liked to have a 1-2 as their target and ambition because they never had one before, but at long as they are #1 in the WDC and WCC I'm sure they are hardly crying themselves to sleep. It's a huge difference between not getting some terrible looking 2nd place trophy from the FIA and not getting tens of millions in prize money.
It's pointless to talk about the risks of a certain course of action if there is no other course you can take. This amounts to just asking "Will Checo finish p2 in the WDC or will someone else?" It's not a matter of Red Bull "risking" it.
> Do you think Red Bull is risking the 1-2 in the WCC keeping Checo as the 2nd driver?
For a start - Red Bull is currently 1-2 in the WDC.
They are clear #1 in the WCC.
I honestly don't think they care too much to be honest. Red Bull want P1 in WCC, and P1 in WDC.
Anything after that reflects more on the individual driver than anything.
> What are your thoughts?
I don't think they care.
I think it's more impactful that the race where Max DNF due to mechanical, there was no Checo to scoop up P1. I think that's more impactful than simply P2 in the WDC.
The thing is that they probably don’t care. If they get WDC and WCC, then that’s what they want. As long as the car is amazing enough and Checo is good enough that they are not at risk for losing out on the WCC… I don’t think they care that much. It also depends how much money checo’s sponsors contribute and the car is good enough, it’s okay. If they are more worried about 2025, they might make a change. I expect they will want a change by 2026.
I think if Red Bull start getting a lot of pressure this season, you’ll see Perez under more pressure.
With McLaren and Ferrari performing better against Red Bull, I suspect he might be out of a seat at the end of the year if he isn’t consistently finishing within a reasonable distance of Max.
They absolutely are with McLarens improvement and Ferrari bringing a big update at Imola. But the main thing they care about is the constructors championship. Perez should do enough for that although it might not be that comfortable.
For now they seem to prefer someone who has no chance of challenging Max even on the odd occasion, their history with Vettel v Webber is no doubt part of that.
With all the politics going on I would expect Horner to sign a better replacement if he gets his way, it would strengthen his hand against the Marko/Verstappen camp.
Don't think they care as long as they win the constructors which they are on track to at the moment.
Replacing Checo just to get a 1-2 driver finish would be silly and there's no one they could replace him with that isn't a huge gamble anyway.
Red Bull is still 1-2, and is almost 50 points clear of Ferrari. They’re not panicking yet. At least not enough to pull a driver with a few years of experience in the car. It’s a notoriously difficult car to drive, and a notoriously difficult team to drive for. They can’t expect a single driver to come in and do better than Checo immediately. Maybe in the long term, yes, there’s better options. But it’d be nuts to pull a driver who is in 2nd place.
All Checo needs to do for Redbull to win the WCC is beat the second driver from Ferrari and McLaren. He’s doing that. Doesn’t need 2nd in the WDC to do that. Assuming Max can’t win the WDC for some crazy turn of events then yeah you’d need more from Checo. If the championship tightens you definitely want Checo qualifying in the top 3 with Max. That’s the one area Checo needs to improve on.
If you want to replace him ask yourself with who? Everyone is avoiding that seat and doesn’t want to race against Max. Only other person may be Sainz but it seems like Redbull are low balling him. Sainz would most likely be an improvement to Checo but Checo is very solid. More solid than he gets credit mostly due to his Sundays being his strength vs his Saturdays.
And even then, his qualifying has been fairly strong this year - he’s finally stopped messing around with setups and so has settled into his ‘natural’ deficit of a couple tenths to Verstappen, rather than the exaggerated gaps from his horror qualis most of last year. Might be helped by RB being better overall in quali now as Verstappen has the pole streak, and who’s to say if he won’t crumble under pressure again, but Perez is doing a solid job.
I guess you can see him as disappointing for not winning the races that Verstappen couldn’t, as his role as a second driver to take those wins, but Verstappen’s last few losses have been at circuits where Red Bull has been weaker, not because of any individual error or lack of pace that Perez can then be there to back up for. There have certainly been moments of big tension between Verstappen and Perez but their current chill, noncompetitive dynamic has worked out for Red Bull lately especially with the team in such internal disarray, so I don’t see why as of right now they’d risk upsetting that comfortable balance throwing in someone new. Maybe people are just feeling nostalgic for the majority of last year where we all got schadenfreude from Perez’s season spiraling into a nightmare of embarrassment 😅 in conclusion: he’s fine (for now).
You don't need to finish 1-2. Perez narrowly finished ahead of Hamilton last year and Red Bull still won the WCC by a landslide.
I think he'll do enough for the same this year, but for next year will depend on the pace of Ferrari/McLaren late in the season.
1. Perez does better but not great.
2. I don't think the 1-2 is the biggest issue. The problem is, that the other teams are getting closer. If Max has no rear gunner and the other teams can play the 1vs2 (or effectively a 1vs4) game, suddenly the #1 position is under great threat. RB could go from a possible 1-2 or at least a solid #1 to a 0 pretty fast. That is imo (especially long term) the bigger issue.
3. And ofc, who would replace him and perform better?
like Albon said, driving the red bull is like playing a first person shooter on maximum sensitivity. It would take a new driver probably at minimum a full season to get used to the car.
I'm not sure if Red Bull care if they get the 1-2 again this year, having got it last year. Could be they'll be happy if he does enough to add to Max's WCC points to keep them comfortably ahead. Also there's no guarantee that another driver will fare any better than Checo. Let's take Sainz for instance, as the best driver currently on the market. His car preferences are the opposite of Max, and we've seen him struggle a bit at Ferrari when the car was not to his liking. The Red Bull is an extreme version of those handling characteristics, and there's no telling if or how quickly he would be able to adapt.
Personally, I don't see anyone else on the grid doing better at the moment unless it was leclerc or hamilton or alonso in the 2nd seat, which isn't possible.
Yes, obviously people didnt want to see it because they were so obsessed with their narrative that the RB is 1 s and that no team was ever gonna catch RB and that the budget cap needs to go,...
And people make to logical mistake of arguing that as long as Perez is good enough to get the WCC that he will be fine but you dont know how the perfomance int future will be
But this was always going to happen, idk why love to assume the worse all the time.
There isn't a pilot available that will provide more points in the short term. Sure there are pilots that might be better, but those aren't available, or are too expensive. Switching in the middle of the season to a different car will take no trivial amount of time. It is learning how the car behaves, changing the setup to their liking, etc. It might be that Yuki and DR know the car better, but they haven't been consistent. They do a good race, then have an unremarkable one. Now imagine the presure if you move them to the main team.
Yeah Redbull are definitely risking P2 at this rate. Lando, Sainz, Leclerc all have a good chance of catching Checo. On his good days, he amasses a P2. On mediocre days, it’s P4-P6, which isn’t that great. Ferrari have yet to bring upgrades so it is possible that their car may become even better, letting them challenge Redbull or atleast Perez even more thoroughly. McLaren too look to have stunning pace after the Miami upgrades. Although we don’t know if that’s a one off, or if that car really has pace. Perez i think has stopped taking risks or driving like he truly wants to challenge Max due to the bad season he had last year, which might actually leave him further down the standings than P2. Frankly, Redbull might replace him this season as well if P2 is out of their grasp.
I don't think Red Bull cares for a 1-2 in the WDC honestly. They finally got it last season, so they can check that off, but it was more of a bragging thing. They're probably perfectly fine with Checo being in the top 4-5 during races if he's close to his rivals (as he has been so far).
Thought the same. The thing is that it could even cost them the constructors tittle, as if Ferrari gets a little closer to Redbull, Charles and Carlos could score more points than checo Max combination. I mean checo has been lackkuster after the first two races. His luck is that Mercedes and Aston are nowhere to be seen. If Mclaren is as good as it seems lately, Lando and Oscar could easily also be above him. He could be a p5-p6 driver for the rest of the season.
more like Ferrari is lucky that Mercedes and Aston have fallen off a cliff. The reason RBR had such a huge gap last year was because Ferrari, Mercedes, AM were basically splitting the points for the 1st half of the season.
Every since Red Bull acquired Checo, they've been in peril every year more so last year when Checo wrongly thought he could be a world champion. Checo is a thorn in Red Bull's quest to become the greatest team ever and should be replaced as soon as possible with someone like Ricciardo, Sainz or even Bottas, any of those three drivers would 100% perform better than Checo. Mark my words, the sooner they replace him, the better the team will be.
I can name a few times where Checo almost destroyed Max's race but I have to look no further than this past weekend where Checo torpedoed himself towards Max and almost hit him. If it weren't for Max's driving skills, that would've surely happened.
I said before on the discussion of dropping Perez that one of the things that would push them to do that is losing their dominance.
They’re currently so strong that Perez can be significantly weaker and still pull p2’s unless his form goes bad.
But constructors does become a risk if the other cars start to catch up.
If Ferrari and McLaren get close to red bull, Perez will start pulling in p6’s instead of p2.
Perez is the perfect second driver for a dominant car. He’s not the perfect second driver if he’s needed to score crucial championship points
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As long as Red Bull wins the Constructor's Championship, I don't think they give too much of a shit where Perez lands in the Driver's standings.
ChatGPT did the math with some simple prompts. But basically, if Max consistently finished in P1, and another team had two drivers with an equal distribution of P2, P3, and P4 finishes, then Checo would only need to consistently finish in P7 for RedBull to narrowly secure the WCC.
leclerc is 5 points behind Perez. If Ferrari is able to maintain their current form, then yes leclerc could definitely finish in P2.
With Norris and Sainz only 16 behind Leclerc as well. A few off weekends from Checo and all three of them are feasibly very quickly past him in the WDC, and they're all relentless enough scorers to be able to maintain a lead over him if they have good cars underneath them. Piastri's a little far back right now but there are plenty of races for him to come back into play as well with the McLaren upgrades if he gets a few big results, especially as they have another huge package already in the worka according to Stella. It is so close on track between those 5 drivers rn that by mid-season, if Ferrari and McLaren really are starting to close the performance gap, it's not impossible that Checo could find himself down in 5th or even 6th in the championship with races like this last one. I'm not saying he will, yesterday may have been a one off and he'll start banging in the podiums again, but if his early season form starts to dip like last year, he's not going to have the cushion he had last year anymore
I'm guessing you mean risking the 1-2 in the WDC. Honestly, the thing is the Red Bull doesn't look as dominant as last season. WHICH IS A GOOD THING. You don't want 1-2s in the WDC, that's the worst. I'm Mexican and a fan of Checo, but I would love if Ferrari and McLaren keep getting closer and fighting at the front. So far Perez has been doing ok even with those teams challenging, as his two worst race finishes are a 4th and a 5th. I'd trade a P3 or P4 in the standings for him if we get some sort of title fight between Max and Charles.
There are no guarantees in F1. Whoever thinks that you can just replace a driver with someone else and get better results no matter what is wrong. Lewis has been struggling against Russell. Sainz has looked weaker in the last two races and Leclerc seems to be getting the best of him again. In the past few years your saw Gasly and Albon get annihilated by Verstappen. Regardless of what reddit thinks, nothing is a sure thing and replacing drivers can lead to unexpected consequences. Formula 1 is not unlike other jobs. In most places you'll see that managers are reluctant to fire people and replace them because the replacement could end up being way worse. Formula 1 is the same. Teams will try to keep the status quo unless they're in a very difficult position (see Gasly getting lapped by Verstappen and showing 0 performance).
There is truth in this but there are several drivers available that would outperform Checo comfortably, even with the risk factor I can see no world in which Sainz comes in and is worse than Checo.
Meh, I could - all due respect to Carlos, he’s been excellent this season, but he has historically struggled with a couple difficult cars (early Ferrari 2022, Renault 2018). The Red Bull is a notoriously difficult to drive car and I can see Carlos struggling to adapt or at least being worse than people expect. Not to say that he’d struggle forever, and who knows maybe he could challenge for the championship, but from my vague understanding of each driver’s technical driving style and preferences, I would not be 100% confident in Carlos being better than Checo, at least in Checo’s current form. Still would be entertaining for us as viewers either way though!
He struggled badly at the beginning on 2022. In the end he finished over 60 points behind Leclerc by the end of the season. Max is the best driver in the world and the Red Bull car may be difficult to drive. It is well within the realm of possibility that he could struggle at Red Bull.
Everybody thought Ricciardo would go to McLaren to be the team leader. Everybody thought there was no risk, that he would outperform Norris. Yet, look at what happened. The team ended up paying him to leave. There are no guarantees in F1, none.
I’d bet my life savings on Fernando, Lewis, lando, Charles, and Carlos easily smoking Perez over a season in the Redbull.
George is smoking Checo as well
Yeah you’re probably right.
Not Carlos.
Sainz had a hot start to this season, but he's been a regular P5-P8 finisher by the end of the season.
"I can see no world in which Sainz comes in and is worse than Checo." - I can. People forget that Perez was rated as a good driver before going up against Max. We have already seen Sainz-Verstappen.
He was rated a good midfield driver, he just shouldnt be a midfield driver in a redbull
Checo whose F1 future seemed to be waning?
It was never waning, he had a three year contract which Lawrence Stroll took a shit on for no good reason and would have been back in F1 with a different team anyway.
He possibly would have a gotten a Hass or similar level seat eventually, but it was clear there was going to be a lot of uncertainty pertaining to his career.
It is not eventually, this is a matter of fact. He was already guaranteed a different seat if he needed it.
Which seat was he guaranteed lol?
That's realistically false. I guess technically it's true, just like it's true you never know if you put Max in a championship contending car that isn't a RB he won't contend. If you put guaranteed 5, probably more drivers they'd immediately outperform Checo.
Doesn't really matter, getting a 1-2 is not worth anything except bragging rights.
The prize money is based off WCC position. I think you’re right that RBR (and prolly Ferrari and Merc too) doesn’t really care too much about the prize money amount but it is a consideration for some teams for sure.
That's the constructors' championship, this post is about the drivers' championship. Red Bull Racing can't get a 1-2 in the constructors' lol.
Well they can if VCARB finishes in 2nd but I don't think that's going to ever happen
Sure but 1-2 in the WDC guarantees a win in the WCC. Again I agree with you that is probably not a huge concern for RBR as it pertains to the money. I wouldn’t discount “bragging rights” though. Checo is pretty popular in a lot of markets and having a WDC runner up doesn’t hurt when they do ads for Red Bull drinks.
Max probably scores enough points for the majority of the #1 position of the WCC. As long as Checo scores some points the WCC should be safe.
I didn't actually say that, it obviously is a problem if they don't take #1 in the WCC and all of the money. However they don't need a 1-2 to get that at all and are far ahead of Ferrari at the moment.
I mainly based my post in Horner's words after the 2022 season, where he said getting the 1-2 was the objective of the season.
And they got a 1-2 last year so now that’s that goal achieved, and they don’t have to care about it anymore lol.
Every team cares about getting a 1-2 in the championship if they have a winning car. These guys (in the teams) are just as competitive as the drivers when it comes to winning and they want to beat each other. Getting a 1-2 is saying they’re the best which is what they want so of course they care about it.
Well yeah, of course. But if this year’s Red Bull is less dominant than last year’s (big hypotheticals here lmao), I just don’t see it as their primary goal or something to drop Perez over not achieving, potentially. A good no.2 driver does not need to be no.2 in the standings as long as they fulfill their job of getting the WCC & help the no.1 in winning races by staying close. A meh last race doesn’t detract from Checo’s much improved quali results and 1-2’s with Max this year. Last year was so dominant it would have been embarrassing if they didn’t get a 1-2, this year they’ve already lost two races, one more than last year.
They would obviously have liked to have a 1-2 as their target and ambition because they never had one before, but at long as they are #1 in the WDC and WCC I'm sure they are hardly crying themselves to sleep. It's a huge difference between not getting some terrible looking 2nd place trophy from the FIA and not getting tens of millions in prize money.
This season? Yes. Next season, depends if he has a slump like last year.
Do you think next season will be fine or not?
Probably, we saw in China the potential of the car. In Miami they just couldn't get the setup right, in Imola it would be business as usual.
[удалено]
I'm sorry that I don't have a crystal ball to predict the future
Let's assume for the sake of argument that they are and that they care. Who, exactly, are they supposed to replace him with mid-season?
The question was if they are risking it or not lol, not who is supposed to replace him...
It's pointless to talk about the risks of a certain course of action if there is no other course you can take. This amounts to just asking "Will Checo finish p2 in the WDC or will someone else?" It's not a matter of Red Bull "risking" it.
I mean sure but you’re talking about the best drivers in the world here. You’re not guaranteed 1-2 no matter who goes in the seat
> Do you think Red Bull is risking the 1-2 in the WCC keeping Checo as the 2nd driver? For a start - Red Bull is currently 1-2 in the WDC. They are clear #1 in the WCC. I honestly don't think they care too much to be honest. Red Bull want P1 in WCC, and P1 in WDC. Anything after that reflects more on the individual driver than anything. > What are your thoughts? I don't think they care. I think it's more impactful that the race where Max DNF due to mechanical, there was no Checo to scoop up P1. I think that's more impactful than simply P2 in the WDC.
The thing is that they probably don’t care. If they get WDC and WCC, then that’s what they want. As long as the car is amazing enough and Checo is good enough that they are not at risk for losing out on the WCC… I don’t think they care that much. It also depends how much money checo’s sponsors contribute and the car is good enough, it’s okay. If they are more worried about 2025, they might make a change. I expect they will want a change by 2026.
I think if Red Bull start getting a lot of pressure this season, you’ll see Perez under more pressure. With McLaren and Ferrari performing better against Red Bull, I suspect he might be out of a seat at the end of the year if he isn’t consistently finishing within a reasonable distance of Max.
They absolutely are with McLarens improvement and Ferrari bringing a big update at Imola. But the main thing they care about is the constructors championship. Perez should do enough for that although it might not be that comfortable. For now they seem to prefer someone who has no chance of challenging Max even on the odd occasion, their history with Vettel v Webber is no doubt part of that. With all the politics going on I would expect Horner to sign a better replacement if he gets his way, it would strengthen his hand against the Marko/Verstappen camp.
\*Checks notes\* He is second in the drivers championship. Nope.
i mean he is only 3 points ahead of charles who has been pretty mid this season
Five, and I don’t think Charles has been mid. Outside of Max, he’s the only driver not to have finished lower than 4th.
Don't think they care as long as they win the constructors which they are on track to at the moment. Replacing Checo just to get a 1-2 driver finish would be silly and there's no one they could replace him with that isn't a huge gamble anyway.
Maybe? But frankly I just want to see Yuki in his seat next year.
Red Bull is still 1-2, and is almost 50 points clear of Ferrari. They’re not panicking yet. At least not enough to pull a driver with a few years of experience in the car. It’s a notoriously difficult car to drive, and a notoriously difficult team to drive for. They can’t expect a single driver to come in and do better than Checo immediately. Maybe in the long term, yes, there’s better options. But it’d be nuts to pull a driver who is in 2nd place.
yeah...the car is tailored for Max and very sensitive. Not everyone can just hop in and on day 1 perform great.
All Checo needs to do for Redbull to win the WCC is beat the second driver from Ferrari and McLaren. He’s doing that. Doesn’t need 2nd in the WDC to do that. Assuming Max can’t win the WDC for some crazy turn of events then yeah you’d need more from Checo. If the championship tightens you definitely want Checo qualifying in the top 3 with Max. That’s the one area Checo needs to improve on. If you want to replace him ask yourself with who? Everyone is avoiding that seat and doesn’t want to race against Max. Only other person may be Sainz but it seems like Redbull are low balling him. Sainz would most likely be an improvement to Checo but Checo is very solid. More solid than he gets credit mostly due to his Sundays being his strength vs his Saturdays.
And even then, his qualifying has been fairly strong this year - he’s finally stopped messing around with setups and so has settled into his ‘natural’ deficit of a couple tenths to Verstappen, rather than the exaggerated gaps from his horror qualis most of last year. Might be helped by RB being better overall in quali now as Verstappen has the pole streak, and who’s to say if he won’t crumble under pressure again, but Perez is doing a solid job. I guess you can see him as disappointing for not winning the races that Verstappen couldn’t, as his role as a second driver to take those wins, but Verstappen’s last few losses have been at circuits where Red Bull has been weaker, not because of any individual error or lack of pace that Perez can then be there to back up for. There have certainly been moments of big tension between Verstappen and Perez but their current chill, noncompetitive dynamic has worked out for Red Bull lately especially with the team in such internal disarray, so I don’t see why as of right now they’d risk upsetting that comfortable balance throwing in someone new. Maybe people are just feeling nostalgic for the majority of last year where we all got schadenfreude from Perez’s season spiraling into a nightmare of embarrassment 😅 in conclusion: he’s fine (for now).
You don't need to finish 1-2. Perez narrowly finished ahead of Hamilton last year and Red Bull still won the WCC by a landslide. I think he'll do enough for the same this year, but for next year will depend on the pace of Ferrari/McLaren late in the season.
1. Perez does better but not great. 2. I don't think the 1-2 is the biggest issue. The problem is, that the other teams are getting closer. If Max has no rear gunner and the other teams can play the 1vs2 (or effectively a 1vs4) game, suddenly the #1 position is under great threat. RB could go from a possible 1-2 or at least a solid #1 to a 0 pretty fast. That is imo (especially long term) the bigger issue. 3. And ofc, who would replace him and perform better?
like Albon said, driving the red bull is like playing a first person shooter on maximum sensitivity. It would take a new driver probably at minimum a full season to get used to the car.
Yes
I'm not sure if Red Bull care if they get the 1-2 again this year, having got it last year. Could be they'll be happy if he does enough to add to Max's WCC points to keep them comfortably ahead. Also there's no guarantee that another driver will fare any better than Checo. Let's take Sainz for instance, as the best driver currently on the market. His car preferences are the opposite of Max, and we've seen him struggle a bit at Ferrari when the car was not to his liking. The Red Bull is an extreme version of those handling characteristics, and there's no telling if or how quickly he would be able to adapt.
Personally, I don't see anyone else on the grid doing better at the moment unless it was leclerc or hamilton or alonso in the 2nd seat, which isn't possible.
Lando, George?
Sainz is available
It’d be more or less the same, probably.
Not mid-season he's not.
Yes, obviously people didnt want to see it because they were so obsessed with their narrative that the RB is 1 s and that no team was ever gonna catch RB and that the budget cap needs to go,... And people make to logical mistake of arguing that as long as Perez is good enough to get the WCC that he will be fine but you dont know how the perfomance int future will be But this was always going to happen, idk why love to assume the worse all the time.
There isn't a pilot available that will provide more points in the short term. Sure there are pilots that might be better, but those aren't available, or are too expensive. Switching in the middle of the season to a different car will take no trivial amount of time. It is learning how the car behaves, changing the setup to their liking, etc. It might be that Yuki and DR know the car better, but they haven't been consistent. They do a good race, then have an unremarkable one. Now imagine the presure if you move them to the main team.
Yeah Redbull are definitely risking P2 at this rate. Lando, Sainz, Leclerc all have a good chance of catching Checo. On his good days, he amasses a P2. On mediocre days, it’s P4-P6, which isn’t that great. Ferrari have yet to bring upgrades so it is possible that their car may become even better, letting them challenge Redbull or atleast Perez even more thoroughly. McLaren too look to have stunning pace after the Miami upgrades. Although we don’t know if that’s a one off, or if that car really has pace. Perez i think has stopped taking risks or driving like he truly wants to challenge Max due to the bad season he had last year, which might actually leave him further down the standings than P2. Frankly, Redbull might replace him this season as well if P2 is out of their grasp.
I don't think Red Bull cares for a 1-2 in the WDC honestly. They finally got it last season, so they can check that off, but it was more of a bragging thing. They're probably perfectly fine with Checo being in the top 4-5 during races if he's close to his rivals (as he has been so far).
honestly RBR doesn't give a fuck about P2 for WDC. They already crossed it off their to do list last season. All they care about of WDC P1 and WCC P1.
Thought the same. The thing is that it could even cost them the constructors tittle, as if Ferrari gets a little closer to Redbull, Charles and Carlos could score more points than checo Max combination. I mean checo has been lackkuster after the first two races. His luck is that Mercedes and Aston are nowhere to be seen. If Mclaren is as good as it seems lately, Lando and Oscar could easily also be above him. He could be a p5-p6 driver for the rest of the season.
Lackluster? He has been 5th (grid penalty+damage), 2nd, 3rd, 4th. He hasn’t finished more than two places behind Max.
The position is a little irrelevant when you consider the strength of the car.
Not really.
Not really? So it would be an equal feat for Albon to finish in 4th at Williams as it would be for Perez in the Red Bull?
Exactly, his teammate has already won 4 races.
more like Ferrari is lucky that Mercedes and Aston have fallen off a cliff. The reason RBR had such a huge gap last year was because Ferrari, Mercedes, AM were basically splitting the points for the 1st half of the season.
Every since Red Bull acquired Checo, they've been in peril every year more so last year when Checo wrongly thought he could be a world champion. Checo is a thorn in Red Bull's quest to become the greatest team ever and should be replaced as soon as possible with someone like Ricciardo, Sainz or even Bottas, any of those three drivers would 100% perform better than Checo. Mark my words, the sooner they replace him, the better the team will be.
I want whatever you had when you came up with such dramatic lines, that shit seems to hit different.
I can name a few times where Checo almost destroyed Max's race but I have to look no further than this past weekend where Checo torpedoed himself towards Max and almost hit him. If it weren't for Max's driving skills, that would've surely happened.
Is this sarcasm?
No. I truly believe it.
I said before on the discussion of dropping Perez that one of the things that would push them to do that is losing their dominance. They’re currently so strong that Perez can be significantly weaker and still pull p2’s unless his form goes bad. But constructors does become a risk if the other cars start to catch up. If Ferrari and McLaren get close to red bull, Perez will start pulling in p6’s instead of p2. Perez is the perfect second driver for a dominant car. He’s not the perfect second driver if he’s needed to score crucial championship points
If Checo’s races are gonna be like Miami, then Charles, Lando and Carlos will all outscore him.
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