The DRS Zone

Tag: Sergio Perez

  • 2024 Season Review – Red Bull

    Downfall of the Champions

    It was a tough season for Red Bull, they went from being reigning champions to the third best team. You could however say that was largely down to the fact they only had Verstappen scoring the lion’s share of the points. Initially the team picked up where they left off in 2023, scoring a 1-2 in the first two races. It left everyone feeling that we were in for another season of RB and Verstappen domination. In the first five races Verstappen won four and Checo finished on the podium four times. By the time we got to Miami things for Checo at least started to unravel, he finished third in round five (China) and would not finish on the podium again. Verstappen would continue to challenge at the front and retain his crown as World Champion and barring an uncharacteristic Red Bull mechanical retirement in Australia, his worst finish was 6th. They took a “bold” and “aggressive” approach to their car, but it was a tricky one to drive and their development direction did not work and, in some instances, made the cars worse. Verstappen was clearly able to adapt to the car better than Checo underlining the raw talent that he has.

    The Team

    Obviously, the main talking point was the allegations that surfaced about Christian Horner and his inappropriate behaviour. The allegations came out before the start of the season, but it would be months before the talk died down. During that period, you had all sorts of people chipping in. Helmut Markko was sticking the knife in and then Jos Verstappen was also sticking his oar in. For the latter its very much a case of those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. At the end of the day, he’s the father of the driver, it has nothing to do with him what goes on in the team, keep your beak out and opinions to yourself.

    Clearly however it was a power struggle between Markko and Horner, with the former clearly wanting control of the team. Horner however managed to ride out the controversy and remains as Team Principle.

    A couple of massive changes for Red Bull. Firstly, long-standing Chief Technical Officer, Adrian Newey announced at the Miami Grand Prix that he would be leaving Red Bull and seeking pastures new for 2025. This also seemed to start the downfall of RB’s dominance. Naturally after he announced his future departure, his involvement with the race team became minimal and as a result they struggled with the development of the car and wind tunnel correlation not matching what was happening on track.

    Later in the season Red Bull would announce the departure of equally long-standing Sporting Director, Jonathan Wheatley. He was placed on gardening leave later in 2024 and announced that he would be joining Audi for 2026 as Team Principle.

    The Drivers

    Verstappen won the Drivers’ Championship for the fourth consecutive year, as mentioned earlier he showcased his underlying talent by dragging performances out of a car that really was not a front running car. There were plenty of controversy with him along the way as you expect. He is a hard racer and sometimes I think he crosses the line of what is fair, and it does seem that sometimes his attitude is “if try to come past me we will either crash or you will back down”. Personally, I think he goes too far sometimes and when it happens to him, he cries to the team and tries to get others a penalty, which on occasions he has done successfully. When coming up against Verstappen, you know what he’d like, you must be prepared to get your elbows out and get aggressive. If you’re too nice you will come off worse.

    2024 looks like it could be the last time we see Sergio Perez. He started the season off strongly and it rapidly went from bad to worse. He was awarded with a new contract in Canada and RB had hoped this would give him some confidence to turn his season round and unfortunately it seems like it had the opposite effect. You could argue that his performances were more in line to where the cars performance was, but you cannot deny one of the main reasons RB went from champions to third is because Perez couldn’t drag the performance out of the car. At the end of the season his contract was terminated. He went out of the sport with a bang, but not in a good way it was the bang of a collision with Bottas in the final race which could be his final appearance in the sport.

    For 2025….

    Liam Lawson is the driver to replace Perez. For me the jury is still out on this young Kiwi, I am not sure he has proven he deserves that second seat, but he appears to be the chosen one so we will see how he performs. The team will be looking to challenging at the front of the grid again after failing to win the constructors.

    2024 Season Rating 7/10

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  • Happy New Year

    A Round Up Of The Gossip

    I hope if you are reading this you had a good Christmas and New Year and took the time to recharge and indulge. Since my last post there has been a few items of gossip worth talking about, so let’s get straight to it.

    Cheerio Checo

    Red Bull confirmed the departure of Sergio Perez from the team with Immediate effect and as expected announced Liam Lawson as his replacement. You must feel for Checo as he comes across as being a nice guy but ultimately you can’t be surprised at his departure given his form last season. F1 is a ruthless sport and Red Bull are known to be one of the more ruthless teams and arguably his results this season, or lack of them, potentially cost RB the Constructors Championship. Red Bull did however shoot themselves in the foot and made it harder by giving him the new contract just before the Canadian GP, I personally think they should have tried to go after Sainz, but I understand that Sainz Snr and Jos Verstappen don’t like each other, shock.

    He is replaced by Liam Lawson, getting the drive over Yuki Tsunoda, despite Tsunoda comfortably beating him in their head-to-head last season. For me the jury is still out on Lawson, I personally don’t think he’s shown anywhere as much as some of the other drivers that have had that second seat, but time will tell, and I may be proved wrong. I can see however, that he will likely cause sparks within the team and will possibly get his collar felt by Helmut Marko and Jos Verstappen.

    One wonders what Tsunoda must be thinking, he has done everything they have asked of him, and he has improved massively since he first entered F1. Unless Lawson fails spectacularly and gets the early axe, I think he will look elsewhere for 2026. Hard to know really where he would go, however. His best options might be Haas or trying for one of the spots with the new Cadillac team.

    What next for Checo? There is a strong possibility that we may not see him as a driver on the grid again. As with Tsunoda, spots for 2026 are already looking slim and unless there are any significant driver swaps/ moves the only real place I could see Checo ending up is either Haas or Cadillac, both teams would certainly benefit from the financial backing he brings.

    Isack Hadjar Takes The Last Seat

    With the promotion of Lawson, the young Frenchman takes the last spot on the grid. Again, for me I don’t really think this is a particularly strong choice. I have seen him in several F2 & F3 races over the last couple of years and whilst he has flashes of brilliance, he does have occasions where he goes missing or makes a lot of mistakes. For example, he had the chance to win the 2024 F2 Championship and stalled on the grid, then he had the audacity on team radio to blame the team! Time will tell and we will see how ruthless RB will be next year if he does not perform.

    Bottas Returns To Mercedes

    Another one to lose his seat at the end of 2024, Bottas is returning to Mercedes to be their reserve driver. Smart move for me, he did well when he was alongside Hamilton and will bring some experience that Antonelli can learn from for next season. He is also in prime position should Antonelli fail to deliver anything but the car back in bits.

    Hamilton Starts At Ferrari

    Finally, as its the start of a new year, that means that Hamilton has officially now joined Ferrari, despite the hoopla that surrounded him in Abu Dhabi he has not left the sport and will be donning the red overalls this season.

    What’s To Come?

    For F1 next up is the fancy multi-team reveal of their 2025 cars/ liveries in London. It’s more likely to be a livery reveal than an actual car launch.

    For me over the next couple of weeks I will be releasing my review and thoughts of 2024 team by team. I will start from the back of the grid and move forward. Looking forward to starting to add more now we are in 2025, evolving and hopefully growing. To stay up to date please subscribe (its free) and drop a like on the post.

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  • Red Bulls Checo Conundrum

    Unless you’ve lived in a hole the last few months speculation has been rife that Red Bull intend to replace Sergio Perez with either Liam Lawson or Yuki Tsunoda.

    The Background

    I first wanted to briefly touch upon the decision by RB earlier on in the season to renew Perez’s contract. Perez had, had a tough run of races and it was a surprise to many when RB announced at The Canadian Grand Prix the contract extension that would take him through to at least the end of the 2025 season and into the 2026 season. I can only assume the reasoning behind this was the hope it might give him a bit of a morale boost and give him a platform to go and kick on from. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case, not only did he have a weekend to forget in Canada, but the remainder of the season was shocking as well.

    You could argue until you’re blue in the face that his struggles have come due to the performance of the car or if he has even been given an equal car. However, you do have to assume that upgrades went to Max first based on his position in the championship but that doesn’t mean Perez didn’t get them, at the end of the day the goal for RB is to win the constructors championship. Despite popular belief, it is not in RB’s best interest for one of their drivers struggle, they’ve now gone from 1st to 3rd in the standings which whilst it will mean an increase in wind tunnel time and development hours, it does mean they will have less prize money to use on the car.

    The Options

    The replacement options being considered come in the form of Yuki Tsunoda or Liam Lawson. For me I don’t think either of them are of the level that RB need to get back to the top of the championship. You look at Ferrari and McLaren, both of their drivers are generally closely matched and consistently scoring good points.

    Tsunoda has had some flashes of brilliance but for me he lacks the consistency, and he also seems quite hot headed. He also doesn’t strike me as being the most constructive driver when it comes to feedback for the engineers on car set up and development.

    Lawson seems like the chosen one, personally I don’t think he’s shown enough in his time in F1 to really be the man to go up against Verstappen. He stepped in for a few races last season for the injured Daniel Ricciardo and then this season he replaced him completely after Singapore. For me he hasn’t really set the world alight. He does however seem to have a strong character about him which he will need going up against Verstappen. He does come across as a bit arrogant and he certainly doesn’t seem to mind ruffling some feathers, if he gets the move to RB and starts ruffling Max’s feathers that won’t sit well, and he won’t last long.

    The Problem

    Red Bull have themselves a problem and I am not talking about who they pick as a replacement. I am talking about Perez himself. At the time of writing Sergio Perez has a contract to race next season, he is not just going to give that up. Obviously, I don’t know the ins and outs of his contract, but unless RB have some get out clauses within it, it could be hard for them to get out of it. I read a rumour that it could cost Reb Bull up to $80m to cancel his contract, if that is true not only is it a huge sum of money but it might also suggest that there are in fact no performance based “get out” clauses in his contract. Not only that, but Perez also comes with significant sponsorship backing. RB are obviously not short of a penny, but they need to make careful decisions because the drop in prize money, the loss of the sponsorship from him and any monetary payments they must make to terminate the contract could all be factors for next seasons budget.

    Final Thoughts

    Ultimately, I think RB will still replace Sergio Perez. They could go for something they have not done since they joined Formula 1 and give both drivers a go next season. For those who may not know, when RB joined F1 in 2005 they had David Coulthard as their main driver and the second seat they were due to swap between Christian Klien and Vitantonio Liuzzi. That season Klien ended up doing more races that Liuzzi, but it is something they could consider doing again.

    I think they will go with Lawson, he seems to be the chosen one at the moment after Verstappen and they seem to have a lot of faith in him. However, that could also be said of Kvyat, Gasly and Albon all of which seemed to be in the good graces at the time of moving to the main team but in the end they didn’t have the best of times in the other Red Bull and ultimately left for other teams.

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