Zak Brown predicted this week that the infighting seen at Red Bull early this season, will return to the team in the near future. There is no news as yet on the appeal made by the female employee in Milton Keynes, following her accusations against Christian Horner being found to be false by an independent enquiry.

Yet the driver line up is the next flash point for the world champions with Christian Horner and Dr. Helmut Marko not seeing eye to eye. While the 81 year old Austrian is in charge of Red Bull’s junior driver development, it appears the Red Bull team boss holds sway over which driver is finally selected to race for V-CARB and Red Bull Racing.

For the 2023 season, Red Bull decided it was time to move on Pierre Gasly. The Frenchman had been promoted to the Toro Rosso team in 2017 and following a brief promotion alongside Max Verstappen was again demoted to the junior outfit, replaced by Alex Albon. Clearly after six years with Red Bull, Gasly was no longer a junior and would not again be considered for the seat alongside the world champion.

 

 

Marko backs wrong horse

A tug of war existed over Gasly’s replacement. Dr. Helmut Marko wanted to stick it to Toto Wolff given Mercedes had released Nyck de Vries following the German brand quitting Formula E. Marko made bold claims about there young Dutchman:

“Yuki is young and doesn’t have this experience and background, so [Nyck] should lead the team,” Marko said. “We will see how it goes next year, but from the experience and the personality he has, he should be the team leader.”

Ten races later and De Vries was gone and having performed spectacularly in a test at Silverstone, Daniel Ricciardo, who Horner favoured all along, was installed to drive for the junior team alongside Tsunoda.

The writing was on the wall for Nyck since Dr. Marko had been asked on The Inside Line podcast whether he and Christian Horner disagreed much.

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Perez facing summer break axe

“Not often, but sometimes we do. The last one… I would say de Vries,” revealed the Austrian. “Basically it’s AlphaTauri, but we’re a big family and we get opinions. He [Horner] was not a fan of De Vries. I would say at the moment it looks like he was right.”

Horner’s preferred choice of Daniel Ricciardo has not proven Stella either. In his battle with team mate Yuki this year, the Aussie is down 20 points to 11 and in qualifying the stats are 3-9 in favour of the Japanese driver.

Sergio Perez was vocal in support of Horner when he was facing trouble at the start of the year and some F1 observers believe the premature awarding of a new two year contract to the Mexican was due to his loyalty along with a decent start to the season. Now Checo has ‘gone off a cliff’ with his performance and will cost Red Bull the constructors’ title if something does not change.

Sergio is remarkably facing the axe during the summer break due to the clause in his contract which allows the team to release the Mexican driver should he fall more than 100 points behind Verstappen. He is currently 137 behind his team mate.

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Marko favours youth over Ricciardo/Perez

Dr, Marko has been no fan of Perez over the years and was sanctioned by the FIA last season for racist remarks he made about Mexican traits of ‘laziness.’ The Austrian is not a fan of Ricciardo either and recently observed his place in the junior team was now redundant given, “the goal was that (Ricciardo) would be considered for Red Bull Racing with exceptional performances,” Marko said last month.

“That seat now belongs to Sergio Perez, so that plan is no longer valid. We will have to put a young driver in there soon. That would be Liam Lawson.”

Now Perez’s position is in high jeopardy, Red Bull will need to decide on who they replace the underperforming Checo with. Does this give Horner an excuse to try out Daniel Ricciardo until the end of the year, while Liam Lawson finds his feet alongside Yuki Tsunoda?

Yet what of Yuki Tsunoda, who is now in his fourth season in Formula One and was awarded a new contract for 2025 at this year’s Japanese Grand Prix. Is Yuki merely becoming the next Pierre Gasly, who did well for the junior team but was never going to amount to more than that?

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Tsunoda following Gasly

Marko clearly doesn’t rate the Japanese driver given his lack of public comment on the possibility of Tsunoda alongside Max. And Dr. Marko is never backwards in coming forwards and in his column for Speedweek following the British Grand Prix, Marko waxed lyrical over his protege in Arvin Lindblad (F3), Issac Hadjar (F2) and Ayumu Iwasa who is racing in Japanese Super Formula.

The future for Tsunoda looks bleak. If he was ever going to be promoted to the Red Bull team, it would be now. Even if Ricciardo fails alongside Verstappen for the remainder of the year, Red Bull will be assessing Liam Lawson’s capabilities and it would be the New Zealander who is promoted for 2025, while Yuki sees out his contract with the junior Red Bull team.

With Honda partnering with Aston Martin from 2026, much has been written about Yuki’s potential future with the Silverstone based team. Yet Fernando Alonso is signed up to the end of 2027 and Lance Stroll shows no sign of giving up his seat.

Red Bull have spurned for now the possibility of signing the best driver on offer – Carlos Sainz – to replace Perez in 2025 and it appears to be all about some handbags at dawn the Spaniard had with Verstappen when they were paired together back at Toro Rosso.

For a team pushing for a seventh constructors’ title in pursuit of Mercedes eight, Red Bull appear somewhat confused at present with their future driver lineups being affected by politics.

Red Bull ignored grave warning from Newey

 

 

 

Aston Martin boss admits to a Lance Stroll “plan B”

With Mercedes and Haas apparently set to make an announcement about Esteban Ocon’s future in Hungary, Aston Martin are one of just four teams who have two contracted drivers for the 2025 Formula One season.

Despite Red Bull being one of the others, noises emanating from Milton Keynes suggest Sergio Perez may suffer a review during the summer break and be found wanting from a lack of performance clause in his contract signed this year.

Red Bull have found themselves in a pickle having backed Perez for two more years, but since his new deal the Mexican’s results have fallen off a cliff. The team missed out on the obvious choice to replace Sergio, with the impressive Nico Hulkenberg, but he was signed by Sauber/Audi just as Checo’s results were taking a nose dive… READ MORE