As the F1 paddock left Spa-Francorchamps, the uproar over Red Bull’s growing engine crisis was resolved for the first time in weeks.
Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo had been squeezed out the month before the mid-season break. The Belgium Grand Prix is his last chance to plead his case.
Perez continued to flounder, with a lackluster race performance allowing McLaren to reduce its name deficit to just 42 points, less than the maximum score for a team on a race weekend.
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But Ricciardo seemed to thrive under pressure. Already motivated by the difficulties of the start of the season, the Australian recovered and responded insistently. Finishing tenth and scoring the final point in Belgium capped a six-run run in which he had been comfortably RB’s most productive player, outscoring teammate Yuki Tsunoda 7-3.
It would have been difficult to find anyone in Belgium on Sunday night who was confident that Perez would finish the week as a Red Bull Racing driver.
Ricciardo, against all odds due to his poor early form, appears to have done enough to bring his fairytale return to Milton Keynes.
However, when the announcement was made on Monday, the latest news was that there was no news.
Pérez would be retained beyond August, at least for a time.
“Checo remains a driving force for Red Bull Racing despite recent speculation, and we look forward to seeing him perform at tracks where he has excelled in the past after the summer break,” Horner said at the factory on Monday.
It was surrounded by warnings and seemed to last until the end of September, four races.
Clearly, everything was replaced between Sunday night and the conclusion of Red Bull’s mid-season control assembly on Monday afternoon to give the Mexican even more chances to save his Red Bull Racing career just 24 hours after his fate to the rocks.
We can only speculate about the closed-door deliberations, but if you were debating on Perez’s side, there are defenses you could deploy in his favor.
PIT TALK PODCSAT: In the same way as always and despite all expectations, Sergio Perez granted a reprieve through Red Bull Racing, the resolution to stop him or leave him for 4 more races. What does this mean for Daniel Ricciardo’s long career in F1?
PEREZ IS CAPABLE OF MORE
Defending Pérez is the key to this current crisis.
There is no doubt that his recent form has been disastrous. Let’s consider his important statistics since the Chinese Grand Prix, starting with the following circular in Miami.
Sergio Pérez’s average, laps 6 to 14
Classification result: 11. 4 on average
Classification differential: 9. 1 puts Verstappen
Time difference: 0. 519 seconds Verstappen
Race result: 8. 3 average
Race differential: 4. 2 puts Verstappen
Points: 121 Verstappen points (3. 63:1 standing)
These kinds of figures deserve to be discarded – or “unsustainable”, in Horner’s own words.
But there is no doubt that Pérez is capable of – a lot – performances.
The races leading up to the Chinese Grand Prix were very intense, to the point that the team presented him with a new contract much earlier than expected.
Sergio Pérez’s average, laps 1 to 5
Rating result: 3. 0 average
Qualifying differential: 2. 0 puts Verstappen
Time difference: 0. 288 seconds Verstappen
Race result: 2. 8 average
Race differential: 1. 3 puts Verstappen
Points: 25 Verstappen numbers (1. 29:1)
Those kinds of numbers fit into the diversity of functionalities expected for Max Verstappen’s teammate: close enough to keep him tight and pick up the pieces on his days off, but without threatening the team’s one-two hierarchy.
When he’s at this level, he’s precisely the type of driver Red Bull Racing is looking for in their second car.
Knowing that Perez has this form somewhere is part of the motivation to stay with his long-suffering star.
The team will reportedly redouble their efforts to make Perez feel comfortable in the car and in the team environment to regain this performance point.
“There are flashes,” Horner said in Belgium, according to ESPN, perhaps alluding to what would end up being a critical component of Perez’s call to stay. “His race speed [in Hungary] at the end of the week was strong. He had the fourth-best race speed time in Budapest, but had a difficult Saturday with a drop in qualifying.
“He did a smart job [on Saturday in Belgium]. Being 0. 05 seconds behind Charles [Leclerc] on a set of rubbed tires and putting him on the front row was a huge effort.
The team’s patience in this probably desperate quest can’t last forever, but they’ve obviously made the decision to wait 4 more rounds before giving up as a lost cause.
HE IS A TEAM PLAYER
It’s not just that Perez, in his prime, can give Red Bull Racing the teams’ championship and a name double; is that he has shown himself to be a fairly fluid teammate for Verstappen and, therefore, an ideal complement to the capricious Dutchman.
Red Bull Racing gave Perez a lifeline for his career by saving him from being sacked at Racing Point at the end of 2020. While it would be a disservice to his competitiveness to say he’s happy to be in the paddock ever since, he’s never taken any risks. Endanger their lucky moment in the game by moving the ship.
He is generally considered apolitical and easy-going. He all but abandoned his occasional on-track arguments with Verstappen, keeping the team in harmony.
He even responded without complaint to the common complaint of Red Bull’s motorsport advisor, Helmut Marko. He even refused to retaliate when last year the Austrian force boy racially criticized him for his poor form.
Although there are rumors that his driving has caused him to lose the confidence of the technical team, there has never been any communication about his popularity that is not personal.
“Nobody can make that decision [to fire him],” Horner said. “In the team, we need to move it forward.
“He’s a wonderful team player, he’s a wonderful team player, and that’s why I selected him.
“What is frustrating for everyone is that Checo is fighting, because no one sees him fight. Everyone to see him succeed.
“The team has been and is right about him, everyone needs to see him succeed, because it hurts to see him on the stage he is on. “
IT IS A POLITICAL COMMITMENT
It’s hard to see a progression off the track at Red Bull Racing amid the political backdrop that continues to disrupt the energy drink brand’s F1 programme.
The leaders of the two main factions are Horner and Marko, who are said to have fought for maximum strength following the death of the company’s founder, Dietrich Mateschitz, in 2022.
An uphill truce now prevails in a bid to prevent the team from exploding after off-track controversies earlier in the year, but everyone still has their own conceptions of how the programme deserves to unfold – and beyond. The line of drivers deserves to look like this.
It was at his request that the Australian returned to the fold as a reserve driver and because of his insistence that he had a chance at RB last year.
While Horner is reluctant to upgrade Perez in the first place, if that happens he would like Ricciardo to take the seat.
Regardless, it would not only answer the remaining questions about the Australian’s ability to return to his best, but also give Horner a best friend among the drivers at a time when Verstappen’s loyalty to the team boss is under a cloud.
Marko, for his part, supports his young drivers, who owe him their careers. He would have been swayed by Yuki Tsunoda’s performances over the past 18 months and would also be a fan of Liam Lawson’s potential.
Neither of them pleases Red Bull Racing. Tsunoda is believed to lack what it takes to withstand the mental strain of being Verstappen’s teammate, while Lawson is too unknown. His personal control at Silverstone in this year’s RB20 is rumored to have produced times that were neither here nor there. .
Perhaps neither Horner nor Marko will be satisfied with the other being given what he wanted. Keeping Perez in the seat may have simply been a way to preserve the delicate peace by making sure neither of them got what they wanted.
BRING THE BACON HOME
While no one can accuse Sergio Perez of being a paying driver, his prestige as a representative of the grid in Latin America brings publicity advantages, especially now that Formula 1 is trying to strengthen its presence in the Americas, adding high-profile sponsors.
Pérez counts among his followers brands such as Disney, Mobil, Nescafé and KitKat.
Among the sponsors linked to him who still appear to be Red Bull Racing sponsors are telecommunications giant Telcel and its subsidiary Claro, insurer Interprotección and Patrón Tequila.
Although performance-related spending is limited by the charge cap, there are plenty of spaces where groups are free to spend as much as they want, adding salaries for drivers and some staff, as well as marketing activities. Although Red Bull doesn’t want the money, it can put it to smart use.
Axer Pérez will not only be able to charge sponsors; Firing him can affect the team’s bank account.
ESPN reported that canceling his contract could cost Red Bull Racing around $5 million (AU$7. 7 million).
This could possibly be offset by the fact that there is a difference of more than $12 million in prize money between first and second in the constructors’ championship.
This also doesn’t take into account the millions of dollars in injuries Perez has racked up in his struggles this season.
There is also a hypothesis that Red Bull Racing could simply retain some of Perez’s sponsors if his contract is terminated for functionality reasons.
But there is also the matter of Pérez’s passionate fan base in Mexico and Latin America as a whole: a valuable advertising product. It is thanks to his popularity that Mexico returned to the calendar in 2015.
One wonders if the repercussions and negative exposure of showing up in Mexico City after firing the country’s star driving force also weigh on the minds of Red Bull Racing’s decision-makers.
NO GUARANTEED SUCCESSFUL REPLACEMENTS
Although Ricciardo seemed almost determined to take control of Perez on Sunday night, perhaps the control was simply bloodless in committing to the Australian.
Ricciardo was a serious contender for Red Bull Racing just last month.
He was mediocre in the first quarter of the season, where he was beaten by his already underrated teammate Yuki Tsunoda in Milton Keynes, and it was not until he scored his first goals on Sunday in Canada that he really managed to turn his condition around. he.
He has been the most productive RB driver in five of the six rounds since Montreal and gets the most out of the car each weekend.
He would have a smaller deficit than Tsunoda’s 10 points if his recovery had not coincided with the sloppy launch of the team’s upgrade and if he had not had a disastrous one in Hungary.
Even if you are as smart as your last race, the memories of your slow start on the crusade don’t fade so easily. His disappointing British Grand Prix in the middle of this positive run is a timely reminder that consistency has been his biggest challenge this season.
Ricciardo’s choice is Liam Lawson, but the New Zealander has competed in five Grands Prix and will be off the grid for 10 months until August.
Although he considered it, throwing him in the car alongside teammate Verstappen’s killer and asking him to save the constructors’ championship would be incredibly risky, regardless of his rating.
Tsunoda’s early form this season has made him an apparent candidate, however, the fact that he has been beaten by Ricciardo in recent months would only have fuelled RBR’s who seem to think he doesn’t have the temperament to race up front. .
Firing Pérez would be costly. Replacing him with a driving force that will lose the team’s name anyway would be deeply embarrassing — a terminal illness for someone who has admitted to making the final decision.
In this context, maintaining it is the least and least resilient path.