REVEALED: RED BULL POLITICS PREVENTED RICCIARDO FROM REPLACING PEREZ
The world-champion Formula Team Red Bull is well known for its brutality. Their unrelenting pursuit of victory at every Grand Prix during the previous season was indicative of this.
The group is renowned for its lack of compassion for any drivers who are not performing up to par, though.
When Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly were promoted from AlphaTauri for 2019, Pierre Gasly realized this. Before their summer break, the French driver continued until the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Gasly left before the summer F1 break.
When the team returned in September, Pierre had been demoted to the junior squad, and Alex Albon had been granted his Red Bull racing license.
Gasly had finished sixth in the Grand Prix at the Hungaroring, but his teammate had lapped him.
Many Toro Rosso drivers have lost their jobs throughout the years before their careers truly took off, but oddly, Red Bull has proved that they are willing to put up with Sergio Perez, their underperforming Mexican driver, for a long time.
Perez’s contract with the soon-to-be Aston Martin squad expired, but Red Bull chose to let Albon go and signed him for the 2021 campaign.
Naturally, the race between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen dominated that year, but Perez’s inability to even match his teammate’s point total cost Red Bull the much-needed fifth-team title.
The fact that Valtteri Bottas outscored Perez by 36 points, making the silver arrow pairing the best of the year, contributed to the team’s 28-point deficit to Mercedes at the end of the season.
Perez keeps performing poorly.
Verstappen easily won his second championship the next season, and Red Bull claimed the constructors’ championship, leaving Perez dissatisfied. Even though Verstappen proved that the RB18 was superior, Sergio lost the drivers’ title, finishing behind Charles Leclerc in a subpar Ferrari.
After winning two of the first four races of the previous season, Sergio seemed to be headed for recovery. Subsequently, the Red Bull driver suffered a stunning defeat, falling short of his teammate’s point total and failing to qualify for the final seven times.
Between the two drivers, there was gold like that. Verstappen would still have defeated his teammate using the same equipment if he had just participated in the first or last eleven races.
There was much conjecture that Perez would spend his fourth season on the bench and be replaced by Daniel Ricciardo, the prodigal son.
Perez’s contract included performance conditions that would have allowed for his termination, but Red Bull strangely kept him on board despite the lack of any indication that he would at least step it up for the upcoming campaign. What a waste of a reputation for being a merciless team that prematurely bans drivers.
Politics from Red Bull saves Checo
Naturally, Sergio might not make it through the season, and considering Dr. Helmet Marko’s remarks in Abu Dhabi, he will only be Verstappen’s teammate for now in 2024.
However, F1 writer Lawrence Edmondson argues that Checo’s decision to remain at Red Bull may have been a clever move on the part of Red Bull politics.
Dr. Marko stated that the Red Bull junior squad is going through a significant transition and that starting in 2024, the team should be competing toward the front of the grid.
The junior Red Bull team, now known as the Visa Cash App Red Bull squad, purchases a sizable percentage of parts from Red Bull rather than creating their own as one way to guarantee this.
In addition, certain departments have relocated from Italy to England in order to hire better employees that reside in and work in the English motorsport valley.
In fact, the team’s absurd moniker comes from the large price that new sponsor Visa pays, and Edmondson contends that this is the reason Ricciardo was temporarily retained in the junior squad.
Ricciardo is a suitable sponsor for Visa.
Edmondson says to the uncapped podcast, To get to the [Daniel] Ricciardo point, we talked about it a lot last season, and a lot of fans I’ve seen in other places have asked in comments to other articles. They’ve said, Well, why won’t Red Bull promote Ricciardo in place of Sergio Perez? This is exactly why.
They needed a well-known driver to take the lead on this newly formed team, and since Ricciardo is a Visa employee, they can rely a lot on him.
The Australian driver is well-known in Formula One, and after being promoted to the Red Bull senior team, Sebastian Vettel decided it was time to move to Ferrari country.
In their two and a half seasons of racing together, Daniel also performed admirably against Verstappen before deciding to give driving a Renault a go.
Red Bull made a stunning move to sign Ricciardo after McLaren let him go in the middle of his deal since he was supposed to replace Perez.
Nevertheless, despite his strong performance the previous season, Daniel is still on the junior squad with Yuki Tsunoda, and Perez has somehow managed to maintain his motivation in the RB20.
Perez’s future is still unknown
“Retaining Ricciardo and hoping that, after a complete season, he returns to his previous level of play from a few years ago.
However, in the event that McLaren or Ferrari launch themselves very quickly after Red Bull Racing, Perez will need to perform well, or he will depart before the start of the European season, at which point Ricciardo will rejoin Verstappen.
Even so, Edmondson’s theory should have been successful given the car’s introduction, and the early races, including Ricciardo, should provide Visa with the necessary exposure.
Regardless of the drivers, Visa will be pleased if the car lives up to CEO Peter Bayer’s expectations and challenges Alpine for fifth place.
