Red Bull Racing have almost competed their driver lineup for 2025 with recent confirmations of contract extensions for Sergio Perez and Yuki Tsunoda and the sister V-CARB team. The contract for Checo was announced ahead of the Canadian deal and is a 1+1 year deal offering the team the opportunity to retain their Mexican driver into 2026.

Perez confirmed in the run up to the Spanish Grand Prix, he had other options but, “but my aspiration was to continue with this team,” Perez told RACER. 

 

 

 

Red Bull firm up 2025 driver line up

One of the keys to wanting to remain with Red Bull for Perez was the chance to continue being Verstappen’s team-mate. Despite rarely beating his world champion stable mate, Checo revels in there task of lining up against him week in and week out.

“I love having that challenge of being Max’s teammate. That has made me want to keep going, precisely because it is such a challenge. It makes you keep learning and keep growing,” says Perez.

Sergio goes on to outline how Max is at “one with the car” and how at another other team the challenge of beating your team ate is quite different.

Red Bull’s other signing Yuki Tsunoda looked as though he was on his way out of the team last season. Team boss Christian Horner and Dr. Helmut Marko were at odds over the Japanese driver’s future but Marko claimed later in the season it was his doing and it sured up the partnership with Honda for another year.

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V-CARB delivering with new RBR partnership

Yuki was hit and miss during 2023, He picked up just two tenth place finishes during the first ten races when he was listed against rookie F1 driver Nyck de Vries. The pointless Dutch driver was there replaced by Daniel Ricciardo who was at Tsunoda’s standard immediately, through neither scored points in their two races together before the Aussie broke his hands in practice at Zandvoort.

Up stepped Liam Lawson to replace the injured Ricciardo and in his five races with Tsunoda the young New Zealander finished ahead of his experienced team mate four times. The fourth of those races was Yuki’s home event in Japan and it was there that Red Bull announced he would be retained for another year.

Expectations were high for this season’s V-CARB machine. The team has relocated a number of its functions to the UK and its collaboration with Red Bull is akin to that of Haas F1 with Ferrari. The team’s car has been much improved and sits well above the bottom three with 28 points scored in the first nine rounds of the year.

Haas F1 are the next challenger on 7 points and Aston Martin are not out of sight just thirty ahead of the Faenza based team. Yuki has led the way scoring 19 of their 28 points while Richard has struggled to match his team mate, though he does have one more DNF than Yuki.

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Biggest upgrades of the season

In Montreal Ricciardo showed glimpses of the the old himself when he put his car on the third row of the grid in qualifying. The race too was a disappointment for theJapanese driver as he failed to make the points while Ricciardo came home in eight place.

Now as Formula One rolls into Spain this weekend, the teams will be bringing upgrades for what is known as the best test of an all round F1 car at the Circuit de Catalunya. This was traditionally the place where F1 teams would bring their first upgrade of the season, but then the event was round four or maybe five – not round ten as it is this season.

Aston Martin may be looking over their collective shoulder if a report from Formu1a.uno is to be believed. It claims the biggest round of updates for the season to date are being brought by V-CARB to Barcelona.

The team’s first upgrade of the season came in Miami and Daniel Ricciardo finished fourth there in the Sprint Race with Yuki scoring five points across both races that weekend. “Authoritative sources” claim the upgrade package RB is bringing to Spain will be the biggest of the season for them, even going forward. Once the baseline platform has been established in practice one and two, the team expects to experiment with tweaks on the setup which could deliver a massive “2.5 tenths” at Barcelona and Silverstone too which has similar mechanical and aerodynamic demands.

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Ricciardo would’ve made pole in Montreal

In Canada, this would have seen Tsunoda start in P6 while Ricciardo would have claimed the pole position outright from George Russell and Max Verstappen. Of course this kind of jump will not go without reply from the others but given the poor season Aston Martin is having, V-CARB could be quickly closing in on their fish place in the constructors championship.

Daniel reveals he had a ‘clear there air’ meeting following the disappointing Monaco Grand Prix. This resulted with him gathering those closest to him. “It was open book, constructive criticism, give it to me,” he said. “What do you think I can clean up? Where do you feel I’m maybe missing something?

“A lot of it was just managing my energy management over the course of the weekend. It’s not even what I’m doing in the car. It’s just what gets me into the car feeling like I’m ready to go,” revealed the Aussie.

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Daniel refocus plan

Ricciardo is a big personality in the paddock and his joking around was appreciated when he was winning races for Red Bull Racing, yet while his team mate is handing his ass to him on a plate, Ricciardo has decided to cool things down somewhat.

“It was just trying to clean up some of those things, and if there was anything on my mind, trying to get it off my chest,” said Daniel which resulted in him heading into Canada feeling “a bit lighter, hungry and happy.”

Daniel qualified fifth on the grid and scored four points for the team as he finished eighth after suffering a five second penalty for a ‘false start.’

Red Bull points to Ferrari/McLaren cheating

 

 

 

Update: Renault out of F1

Rumours in the paddock have grown inn strength during the buildup to the Spanish Grand Prix that Alpine move from factory team to customer team, therefore meaning Renault is out of Formula 1.

The future of Alpine in Formula One has become a hot topic of speculation, with rumours circulating that the French team’s status as a works team could change to that of a customer team. This speculation is based on the possibility that Renault, Alpine’s parent company, may cease to develop its own power units for the 2026 season and beyond.

Such a move would mark a significant change in the team’s strategy and could reshape the competitive landscape… READ MORE