Lewis Hamilton is heading to Ferrari land next season and whilst he along with Sergio Perez are the worst performers from the top four teams this year, Hamilton has excelled when it comes to keeping his car out of the barriers.

The F1 “distructor” website has the seven times champion in the bottom four when it comes to F1 car repair bills costing Mercedes a mere $320,000 over the course of the season. Pierre Gasly is Alpine’s star driver of the year in this respect with his repair bill across twenty one race weekends being exactly zero for the French F1 outfit.

Sergio Perez who will cost Red Bull the highly prized constructors’ championship this season comes at another cost to the world champion team, with his annual repair bill approaching $5m.

 

 

 

Perez tops F1 crash bill 2024

In fact Checo’s sponsors are believed to fund Red Bull to the tune of $30m plus another $10m of salary, but the $4,861,000 of their Mexican driver’s crash bill will have hurt the team in their efforts under the cost cap to develop their car as much as their rivals.

Behind Perez sits Alex Albon with $4,664,750 worth of repair bills then comes George Russell who by comparison has racked up a paltry $3,204,000.

Logan Sargeant who was sacked after round fifteen in the Netherlands has the highest crash damage per race at $200,533 and even when calculated on a pro-rata basis over the 21 races so far, this is over half a million dollars less than Perez bill at Red Bull.

Franco Colapinto who replaced the hapless Sargeant has impressed in his six races to date, scoring twice in his first four outings before suffering a huge crash behind the safety car in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. But the Argentinian’s crash bill across the six race weekends now stands at £1,794,000 already which if calculated pro-rata across the twenty one rounds rota date stands at a whopping $6,279,000.

Lawson aggression, too much? As he calls out McLaren

 

 

 

Horner refuses to condemn Sergio

Of course Colapinto was not the only driver to crash in the worst of this season’s wet conditions in Brazil, which has skewed the average of the Argentinian’s numbers.

Of course Sergio Perez’s huge repair bill has dented Red Bull’s efforts to catch up with McLaren’s remarkable in season development, which sees them favourites going into most F1 weekends at present. Yet this is not the biggest of the team’s concerns surrounding the Mexican who since the USGP has been defiant in the media, claiming he has a contract for next season and will be driving for Red Bull come what may.

Checo’s über confidence in the terms of the contract extension he signed back in June is tempered by recent comments from team boss Christian Horner and driver academy mentor Dr. Helmut Marko.

“Checo, again, has had a horrible weekend,” said Horner after his driver finished plumb last in his home race in Mexico City. “Nothing has gone right for him. He knows F1 is a results-based business. Inevitably, when you’re not delivering, then the spotlight is firmly on you.”

“Stupid” F1 star “who doesn’t want to be a driver”

 

 

 

Marko calls out Latino temperament

Dr. Marko, who last year accused Perez of having too much of a laid back Latin American temperament spoke of the failed Perez project in Mexico, when Checo crashed out of qualifying and started the race P18. “The hoped-for upturn that we all expected has unfortunately not materialised,” the Austrian told Sky Deutschland.

Spanish publication Marca has published a remarkable report this weekend, which claims Perez will in fact be driving for Red Bull next season. The Mexican has reportedly secured a number of new sponsors, adding to his impressive roster which includes Telcel, Claro and Kit-Kat.

These deals are “tied solely and exclusively” to Perez states Marca and that should Red Bull sever their relationship with the Mexican driver they will incur a “brutal financial penalty” for the team. Perez lack of performance is set to cost Red Bull another $18m in lost prize money should McLaren and Ferrari finish ahead of the world champions at the end of the year.

Marca also reports that despite improving in his fourth year in F1, Yuki Tsunoda is not in the running for a drive alongside Max Verstappen. Neither was Liam Lawson or Daniel Ricciardo before his sacking, due to metrics Red Bull have to compare them to Perez with from a private test. The implication is clear, only Verstappen is capable of extracting the performance from what is a very difficult to drive RB20.

Ferrari wanted Schumacher

 

 

 

Newey cars always “difficult” to drive

Following Aston Martin’s announcement that Adrian Newey would be joining their team last year, 1997 F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve commented that in his experience only the very best drivers can extract the full performance from a Newey designed car.

“From my experience, Newey has always built cars that need to be driven very precisely,” stated the Canadian. “His cars have always had a narrow operating window, but if you found that operating window, the cars were super fast. It is not a car for everyone. He makes cars for exceptional drivers and the exceptional drivers will make a big difference in these cars; the ordinary driver will suffer.”

Newey designed Villeneuve’s 1997 championship winning Williams car although he left to join McLaren before it hit the ground in pre-season testing. It was the same back in Sebastian Vettel’s day as Mark Webber battled with he described as a “counter intuitive” driving style required for Red Bull and Renault’s “off throttle” blowing into the rear diffuser.

As McLaren overtook Red Bull in the constructors’ championship, Christian Horner refused to blame his Mexican driver outright. A new narrative emerged from the Red Bull boss about “supporting Checo” through his difficult time.

Alonso breaks silence amid ongoing struggles

 

 

 

Red Bull car’s DNA will continue into 2025

The problem for Red Bull is their RB20 looks nothing like its predecessor and even Max Verstappen had a ten race winless streak before his drive of the century from the back of the grid to victory in Sao Paulo.

Red Bull brought upgrades to Austin Texas which they hoped would make the car more driver friendly, but Perez’s run of form since then has in fact been worse than before the revised aerodynamics package was introduced.

From the Marca reports, not only will Sergio be racing in Las Vegas, but his seat is secure to the end of the year and beyond. With Newey having departed, Red Bull’s 2025 car will be the first work of a team without the guru design genius. Yet the DNA of the car is surely set in stone for next year’s campaign, given the huge regulation changes coming in 2026.

Schumacher opens up: details about his father

 

 

 

Wolff had the chance to persuade Hamilton to stay

The manager of Manchester City has been re-writing the history books of European football and his tenure at the north of England club has seen him amass an astonishing seventeen trophies in under eight years which includes a historic treble in 2023 never completed before by an English club.

In engineering terms, Pep is to football what Adrian Newey is to Formula One and the Spanish manager’s supreme mastery of managing personnel is so respected that his influence came to bear behind the scenes during Lewis Hamilton’s planned departure from Mercedes.

This week, Toto Wolff revealed he was in fact informed of his star drivers’ imminent defection to Ferrari by none other than Carlos Sainz Snr who clearly had been informed his son was not being retained by the Scuderia and was in fact being replaced by Lewis Hamilton…. READ MORE