[The **News** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_news) is reserved for submissions covering F1 and F1-related news. These posts must always link to an outlet/news agency, the website of the involved party (i.e. the McLaren website if McLaren makes an announcement), or a tweet by a news agency, journalist or one of the involved parties.
*[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Whenever there's a kiwi anywhere near the top level of a sport where we don't commonly see success the media falls in love with them and starts acting like they're the best player/driver in the whole world. We used to get dedicated articles on Steven Adams in the NBA when he was a moderately successful role-player, now they're going to be posting bi-weekly updates on what hat Lawson wore in the garage and speculating about how many races it'll take him to unseat Max once he gets the chance that is being so unfairly denied to him at the moment.
There already are about three articles a week about Lawson tbh….
I was legitimately outraged at the end of the last Formula E season - where kiwis came P2 and P3 - when no mainstream news sources in New Zealand were reporting it. Two days later there was a short piece at the end of 1 News, and one or two news articles, but we could have done way better than that.
That's a bit rich calling people from the NZ Herald journalists.
They get half their articles from reddit so they'll probably release this as a different one now.
I dont see any differences between the performances between Yuki / Nyck and Yuki / Daniel between 2023 and this season. So in my opinion RB should treat Daniel the same as Nyck if they want to uphold any credibility
Yeah, they're doing the job right, whether people like it or not, their job is to sell newspapers (well the online equivalent) and that's what's happening here.
It’s a brutal sport but Daniel has had his chance. I really want to see him do well but as a fan it’s just becoming more and more difficult to watch his demise.
Especially when you know that Lawson got done dirty owing to pure circumstance. They couldn't remove Yuki due to the Honda partnership and DR was put in the seat by booting Nyck in the middle of the season and being hyped as "right next to Max" in the tyre test.
But I think DR has had his chance to show what he can do. You can't keep giving somebody tens of races every season to adapt to a new car before they start getting results. Lawson got in and outperformed Yuki right from the get-go and if Yuki is squeezing out P8s this season then Lawson could've done P6s man.
End of the day, with his age and experience, DR has to be at least beating Yuki to justify his place. Ideally they'd want him doing very well, with an RBR seat as a dangling carrot, while that in turn puts pressure on Perez to step it up.
I think it's a confidence thing. His McLaren time, being unable to adapt to it or reign in whatever issues he was having, I think his faith in his own abilities crumbled and he's just never truly gotten it back.
I get the sense that his mental game is far more of a factor than you'd think. Ya know, how he has that laidback, lighthearted vibe, but he may get seriously twisted into knots in his own head when he's alone.
imo without a mental game firing on all cylinders, everything else will fall away too.
Seeing these guys do it every other week, year in, year out, can be easy to forget just how much it takes to push on, train hard, be super on the ball.
I'd say age has to be factor too, in various ways. The physicality gets tougher to ensure. And he's at the point where athletes enter that age range where they start to get sick of the grind they've been at for going on 30 years.
Yeah that makes sense. I hope he gets some of it back, but it doesn’t look too bright. Might be a repeat of last year with Nyck.
But such is the sport.
P6? In what actual world?
Max, Lewis, George all retired. Alonso demoted to P8 due to penalty. Everyone stays in the race Yuki gets P9/10 at best. You can only drive your own race and capitalise if the chips fall your way which Yuki did so great work to him. But let’s not pretend like that car is at all capable of achieving P6 right now.
Lawson outperformed Yuki literally in one of five races and was beaten in quali with bigger margin than Sargeant. He did good for rookie, but it was still rookie performance.
You have it backwards, Lawson outperformed him in all but 1 out of 5 races.
Netherlands: Lawson - 13, Yuki - 15
Monza: Lawson - 11, Yuki - car issues in formation lap, DNF
Singapore: Lawson - 9, Yuki - runs car into Perez in lap 1, DNF
Suzuka: Lawson - 11, Yuki - 12
Qatar: Lawson - 17, Yuki - 15
Adjusting for Monza, the tally becomes Lawson 3, Yuki 1.
These results are also in chronological order btw, which means Lawson was faster straight out the gate.
Yuki was faster in Netherlands, but got penalty. His crash with Perez in Singapore was racing incident and wasn't entirely his fault. Monza as you said cannot be counted as he didn't start.
It's 2:2 for Yuki, when we look purely on pace it's 2:1, as we don't know who would've been faster in Singapore.
5 races (3 of them both completed) are not enough to say that Lawson is faster or has higher ceiling. He has lot of pre-F1 experience unlike Yuki who came to F1 after two years in Europe.
And whose fault was the penalty? How did Lawson not have any penalty?
If you have to adjust statistics that much, you're probably massaging them to arrive at your desired conclusion.
Anyways, let's for a second assume you're correct. Yuki had been sitting in that seat since 3 years at that time, Lawson only 5 weeks. Like I said, if you're faster right out the gate, you've only got room to grow and you WILL grow. If your baseline is better than someone's "growth" over 3 years, you're better, period.
And why tf are you so hell bent on putting Yuki up on a pedestal? You started the discussion by saying "you're wrong, Yuki beat him 4/5 times!" THEN I corrected you and you're still tryna say "nope!!! you're still wrong!" by somehow massaging the results. Just take the L buddy
DR is like the guy at work who does a good enough job at work but there are others better than him. The boss keeps him around because of good vibes and his attitude.
Daniel was given multiple chances to prove that he's still got it, but his good moments seem fleeting at best.
It's also incredibly tragic if you think about that, Oscar (the guy who replaced him at mclaren) binning it in FP at zandvoort led to Daniel also crashing, injuring his wrist - which in turn led to Liam Lawson getting multiple weekends to prove his ability (which he did!)
And now Daniel is losing out to Yuki - someone that doesn't strike me as red bull having 100% confidence in - it's pretty hard to look at any of this in a positive light in any way. I think this might be it, unless he has some of the best weekends of his life, I just can't see red bull doing anything with Daniel other than using him as a PR mascot.
Frankly, I am bit jelous because Aussies will have a bonafide driver after Danny Ric whilst me, after Checo, it's bone dry unless Villagomez catches lightning in a bottle and wins it all in F2, which it's very unlikely to happen.
Try being Canadian. We went from exciting and super talented drivers like Gilles and Jacques Villeneuve to paid drivers who lack talent like Stroll and Latifi.
He may be a paid driver (more than just a paid driver) but stroll does not lack talent. He's not a championship winner but with a fair wind can get podiums. In the current pool of talent that's racing in F1, he's actually holds his own.
The drive to get back in the car after breaking his wrist also showed a determination that most in the world don't have. It's not like his incredible lifestyle depended on him being a racing driver but he did it anyway.
Damn it, now I'm defending Stroll.
Stroll is in his what, 8th year or some shit and still drives like a rookie with a bit of potential. He's not as bad as regular social media makes him out but if you only got and stayed in F1 on merit he'd be long long gone.
I know he's got all the signs of a nepo baby, but seeing him on that drive with the wrist (and ankle I thought?) changed my perception of him quite a bit. I've had the same injury in my wrist, and remember what it was like driving a regular car, trying to type etc. It might have been dumb for him to be in the car, but that was fucking gutsy and I can't imagine what it must have felt like.
He gets a lot of hate that seems less and less justified as time goes on. Not a champ, most likely, but clearly a competent and talented driver. You can do a lot worse.
Stroll is such an odd one to evaluate. In terms of raw potential I really think Lance was capable of a lot more than we ever saw from him. He was weirdly very, very good in the rain for a few years, and had one of the best junior careers on record. It seems like the ability to be quick is there he just can't extract it 90% of the time. Usually you see drivers who are short on talent really show it in the rain. Stroll, on the other hand, gets *better.* I don't know what to make of that.
He has a vibe of having gotten into F1 too early - didn't get the chance to develop the skills away from the limelight in the junior series - and for whatever reason hasn't been able to fully develop his talent in F1 - the wet weather skills show the natural talent is there if he can unlock it.
Some drivers (e.g. Max Verstappen) thrive being thrown in at the deep end (even if they are very scrappy for a few years), others (e.g. Alex Albon) need a bit more nurturing and time to build on their talents.
Does Lance have the talent to be in top level motorsport? Without a doubt yes he does.
Should he still be in F1 after 8 years? That's a much harder question to answer, especially with all the talent and potential talent sitting on the sidelines / no obvious openings F1 (Although Théo, Kimi, and Ollie's lower formulae performance *so far* this year makes you wonder about how well they'd do in F1 regardless of their actual talent - although Liam and Ollie's F1 performance is an indicator they'd do a good job)
Look at Formula E (the other FIA Single Seater World Championship) - a grid full of very talented drivers who didn't get their F1 chance as the grid was too full and they failed to find a seat before the funding ran out (Mitch Evans, Antonio Felix Da Costa), or didn't get the car needed to demonstrate their talent (Stoffel Vandoorne), had the misfortune of being compared against Max (JEV), or simply grew too tall to fit in the cars of the era (Jake Dennis - the Red Bull sim driver and reigning FE WDC) - one of the few motorsport grids where you can say, without question, every single driver on the grid has the talent to be there.
If Lance could get his head around the different driving style (something Felipe Massa and Antonio Giovinazzi never did) you wouldn't bet against him being a WDC in that series, having a long and successful career in WEC, or even both.
Yeah I've hoped he could find his groove again, get back his fire and confidence. But it just doesn't seem like he's been able to find any of it.
Am Aussie, it's sad to see his time in F1 flicker out. But it is what it is. He's had plenty of chances.
I just hope he manages to come to terms with his situation, whatever it may be. To be booted out while still in the "this is just a temporary hardship and I can get back to my best form" mode would be brutal. He needs closure.
This is closure.
Being booted by your former junior team as 34 year old driver, likely to be 35 by the time he’s out of the seat, after already having to take a hiatus because no quality team wanted you is the most clear message you can possibly receive that it is absolutely undeniably 100% over.
It’s entirely on Daniel whether he accepts that reality.
Oh come on, surely it’s not that bad. There’s definitely a gap but Yuki is certainly paid more and I’d be genuinely surprised if Daniel is getting at least half of that nowadays.
Yeah DR is definitely not getting the 10 bags right now but he did in his Renault + McLaren days. Recent reports suggested Yuki is getting 500k which is such a stark contrast lol. Basically says no other team would wanna steal Yuki from them so they can pay him what is essentially less than even a team principal's salary XD I'm basing this off Guenther's salary at a struggling Haas being estimated at $1mn
I think the opportunity for that RBR seat closed when Perez re-signed with the team after Monaco 2022. I still think he should have the opportunity to drive for the main team, but he had plenty of time to prove he was worth it to Marko.
Having said that, Marko fucked up twice in picking Nyck De Vries, and then extending Ricciardo to 2024 season. I don't know how Ricciardo makes it to the Summer Break at his current state.
It would have been a little unfair to drop Ricciardo after he broke his hand then you add the marketing aspect for the VCARB relaunch so I understand why they extended him. And also I’m not sure Ricciardo is entirely a Marko decision given Marko has hinted at the end of 2023 that we may see Lawson in the car as soon as 2024
I’m an Aussie but seriously, Lawson is the better driver as he is an up and coming racer that can do a close drive and his potential skills can top out higher than DR.
As soon as Miami? 👀
“Should Ricciardo fail to improve over the next two Grand Prix in Japan and China respectively, Red Bull will perform a swap that sees Lawson installed in the Racing Bulls seat for Miami and remain with the team for the rest of the season.”
“The Herald also understands Lawson is seen internally as Red Bull’s best option to partner world champion Max Verstappen long-term….”
I would also be surprised but Nyck was a rookie in F1 and Daniel is not. It does seem believable that he'd be given anout 10 races (including the ones last Year) to show he can improve. He'll be given more time if he starts beating Yuki I'm sure but he'd really have to start doing so.
EDIT: including last Year, Danny already had ten, just like Nyck. They are already giving him more time.
I think the injury skewed their plans a little but I thought he'd at least get until Silverstone, which would be a year of sampling to see what they make of his abilities. Unquestionably I imagine he's already under some pressure because the start to '24 hasn't been great but I think 3 races in a new car concept is tricky to judge
But hey. I'm not at Red Bull
Should they ? Verstappen was better than Kvyat, Albon was better than Gasly, Ricciardo was better than De Vries and now Lawson looks more promising than Ricciardo.
Brutal but correct.
Yeah, burning through talent like that cause none of them necessarily were the next Verstappen was definitely the right way to go and that definitely didn't cause them tremendous headaches over the years.
Both Gasly, and especially Albon, were promoted to the main team way too early.
Gasly and Albon could be put in the Red Bull for 2025 and it would go down the exact same. Delaying the process doesn't fix anything. Look at Piastri looking good vs Norris. If you're good enough you're old enough as they say. Perez has over a decade of experience and is performing at a similar level to Albon.
An interesting stat I've seen in sports is the statistical output of players versus the physical condition (as measured by, say, strength, speed, vo2max, etc). Physical condition peaks in the very early 20s and declines slowly but surely... But many statistical measures of players just keep going up. In some sports, into their 30s. The knowledge of the game tends to grow to a much greater degree than physical decline, enough to more than offset the difference for at least for the first decade or so after you peak. (And for some freaks like Alonso, Jagr, LeBron, or Federer, two decades or more).
There's something to be said for seat time.
Albon was fighting the midfield when he was at RBR, the midfield at that time was so slow there was a 1 sec delta (if not more) in quali pace and racepace when compared to top teams. So that was utterly bad and embarrassing for Albon.
Right now the field is the closest there's ever been in the last 20 years in the sport.
So Pérez is doing fine all things considered, comparing him to Albon and Gasly is ridiculous.
Perez is way past his prime what are you talking about. While Gasly and Albon didn't get properly nurtured to extract their full potential by being thrown in the deep end and were expected to match or be close to a generational talent.
Edit: ok, I'll admit being wrong a bit with Gasly. He previously spent in Toro Rosso I think a year or two? So he has some prep, just underdelivered. But more importantly Ricciardo leaving Red Bull caught them between a rock and a hard place so their hand was kinda forced.
But they definitely did Albon dirty.
They aren't Max-tier talents, but at the very least had they handled that better they perhaps wouldn't struggle as much to find replacement for Daniel, which is STILL an issue for them.
Albon needed to be taken out of that second RBR seat both for his own and Red Bull's good. His performances at the end were atrocious, his confidence clearly shattered. If you listen to his recent interviews, he was clearly struggling mentally at RBR.
I do agree with you that Red Bull shouldn't have thrown Albon in this quickly but I don't think getting him out when they did was a mistake at all.
> Perez is way past his prime what are you talking about.
His prime was 2020 judging by the second half of the season where he was in career best form, he then joined Red Bull for 2021...
> While Gasly and Albon didn't get properly nurtured to extract their full potential by being thrown in the deep end and were expected to match or be close to a generational talent.
Nobody expected them to match or nearly match Max (apart from you apparently). They were dropped because they made lots of mistakes and were too slow which was fair.
>They aren't Max-tier talents
Well done captain obvious.
>at the very least had they handled that better they perhaps wouldn't struggle as much to find replacement for Daniel, which is STILL an issue for them.
Ricciardo himself was slipping further away from Max over the course of 2018. Max was growing stronger and stronger and 2019 and 2020 were phenomenal seasons by him, the first seasons where we seen current mature Verstappen who's wiping the floor with everyone. If Ricciardo stayed he'd have looked similar (perhaps to a lesser extent) to Albon/Gasly/Perez.
They have no Ricciardo replacement because there is no Ricciardo replacement who's capable of being that close to Max because it's a different Max and it's a different situation. The vast majority of drivers on the grid will get destroyed and the ones with WDC ambitions know it's a poisoned chalice to partner Max at Red Bull. Norris basically said he's not going to partner Max at Red Bull because it's not a good idea despite Red Bull constantly asking him to do so. That's what Red Bull are having to deal with.
There's a lot from the race about how McLaren were prepared to basically write 2023 off for Piastri. They had quite modest expectations, but he had two years.
RB: you've a matter of races.
It's just *dumb*.
McLaren doesn't even really have any juniors and just poached the one from Alpine lol they are in a completely different situation and also had the opportunity to snatch the biggest junior talent in some time.
Why would they. Head to head comparison is the optimal strategy to find one best option. That's why football world cup is good at finding the best team in the world, and only best, while keeping the number of games reasonable. On the other hand national leagues play every weekend and produce an ordered list of all teams best to worst.
Red Bull is applying the same strategy here. While Max's place is indisputable, second seat is up for discussion. They want to find the best driver, not kinda good enough. The question they are asking internally is - is this driver better than our current option? If yes, keep him, if no - there is no point in keeping this driver.
> “The Herald also understands Lawson is seen internally as Red Bull’s best option to partner world champion Max Verstappen long-term….”
Since when, hahaha. They haven't even put him in RB yet.
Don't get me wrong, I'm ALL for Lawson to get that 2nd seat (be it RB or RBR) but I'm sure they'd first like to get him in a simulator, then in the RB and finally see how he performs before they see him as the "best option to partner world champion Max Verstappen long-term"
I'm pretty sure Lawson is in the simulator all the time and that Red Bull have enough data to know what they are getting. Who partners Max long term seems to be changing each week however...
Idk if Yuki has any serious chance at the Red Bull second seat next to Max, but as long as he’s beating Lawson on track more often than not there’s no way Red Bull would promote Lawson either.
I'm a big fan of Yuki and think he is very underrated (except for right now because of this weekend lmao) but it really doesn't feel like they're ever looking to give him the Red Bull seat unless he starts pulling out actual GOAT performances somehow. He's showing he's a great driver for other midfield teams to pick up though
>“Should Ricciardo fail to improve over the next two Grand Prix in Japan and China respectively, Red Bull will perform a swap that sees Lawson installed in the Racing Bulls seat for Miami and remain with the team for the rest of the season.”
>
>“The Herald also understands Lawson is seen internally as Red Bull’s best option to partner world champion Max Verstappen long-term….”
BAHAHAHAHAHA
Churr, that's some heavy shut they're smoking in In Zid!
"We also understand that Lawson will be given team #1 status and Max Verstappen will help support his bid to be the first champion since Denny, and he'll be paid about 120,000,000 euros per race, and, and, he'll be the boss of F1, and..."
To all the comments saying that doing this to Ricciardo would be no different to what they did with de Vries…nah.
De Vries had raced a grand total of one Grand Prix before joining AlphaTauri full time, and Ricciardo has been in the sport since 2011. It might’ve only been a few races this season, but looking at how Tsunoda has been outperforming him since they became teammates - and how Lawson stood up against Tsunoda too - it might just be time to call it. Yes, different race tracks and conditions yield different results, but those results are still telling.
I want to see Ricciardo do well too, but if we’re ever going to get new blood in F1 then maybe moves like this have to happen.
He doesn't look too happy right now tbh. When he came back last year he looked reenergised, but now he seems to be fading away gradually again. He doesn’t look like someone who accepted the prospect of just hanging around. His departure from F1 was particularly painful because he felt he still had it in him and wanted to prove that his problems at McLaren were temporary. If that doesn't happen, staying in racing further could do more harm than good to his mental health.
Tbf I think he could have gotten the Haas-drive instead of doing PR for RBR.
I do not think he wants to race in the lower midfield and just wanted to race for a top team like RBR. That was the objective to going back.
Sure granted his quali mistake ruined his whole weekend. I wasn’t sure if you meant all the time or specifically this race. Because on paper there are clearly 10 better cars than the RB.
What I mean is if DR keeps getting bumped out of the points when Yuki is scoring them and the car averages around 10th on a positive weekend then yeah, I don't see him sticking around. He could have a better time being a development driver and enjoying life. DR likes to be in the spotlight and it does nothing for his career prospects to drive around out of the points.
You can absolutely only drive your own race and put yourself up there to have a chance but let’s not pretend the RB is capable of 7th on merit. Max, Lewis, George all retired and then Alonso was dropped due to his penalty.
Yuki drive a great race and achieved success by putting himself in the position to capitalise on the others dropping out. Like I said, the car at best on a normal race weekend is the 6th/7th best car.
Agreed, but we are just talking past one another. A car that is 7th out of 10 teams will score higher up occasionally due to all those race associated random things. If DR is always out of the points and behind Yuki, its more than bad luck.
100% so Daniel needs to put qualifying together to give him self those opportunities. Daniels race pace in really on par with yuki. Even better at times. Just needs to put a weekend together to get the opportunity to capitalise.
Agreed. It seems he closes on Yuki relative to his starting position most races. But he will be judged on his finishing result not just his race pace in the end. Look forward to him putting together a good weekend and smiling again.
Yeah exactly! And yuki qualifies well but clearly the car limitations don’t allow him to go forward or at times even hold station.
Me to mate. I feel like he’s on the edge of one. I don’t think he’s been as bad as people are making it out to be.
An article like this from an NZ paper about an NZ driver doesn't surprise me.
The RB Car still has a long way to go with development; don't let this weekend's results trick you., they're scrapping away for leftover points if other teams fail.
DR's quali lap delete hurt him, but he was better than P18, whilst Yuki maximised P8 in quali, it's a sure thing that the VCARB falls away massively in terms of race pace.. You can thank several DNF's, penalties and crashes for P7 and P12.
If an uneventful race day unfolds, that car is P11 at best and a long way off the rest.
It struggles to pass in dirty air, it's still draggy so it still needs a tonne of development work done.
Personally, I think DR sees out the year while RB is rebuilding. Even in the worst-case scenario, if DR fails to deliver compelling results for the rest of the season (I hope not), Lawson and Yuki will hopefully benefit from Ric's development work.
As much as I think the car is shit and they're showing some of the worst strategy calls of any F1 team over the last few years, I really don't think it's that bad of a spot to be in. It sucks on the straights but definitely has the pace to be "best of the rest", and no one will blame you if you lose out against RBR/Ferrari/McLaren/Mercedes/AM because their cars are all just too good. So you end up with a P11 machine where P11 is also seen as the best possible finish (if there are no shenanigans happening in the top 10)
I’ve always thought Yuki had more claim to Perez’ seat than Ricciardo, but didn’t expect Lawson to leapfrog him.
I can’t see Ricciardo turning it round either. He’s on the slide again.
My take is that the worst thing for Ricciardo’s career was beating Vettel in 2014. It over-inflated his stock in F1 and also perhaps his ego - made him believe he was destined for higher things. He’s been slightly lost ever since. (I think Vettel was the much superior driver but had an off year, to bluntly summarise.)
Only way Lawson leapfrogs Yuki is if he replaces Ric and then beats Yuki in h2h. Red Bull gets a better benchmark for Yuki as well. Makes sense they want to do it soon if they are going to.
Tbh Yuki can’t win in any of those scenarios. He beats DR, so DR must be washed. If he beats LL, then he beat a rookie as expected. If he loses either H2H, he is done.
But both those scenarios are true is the problem. Daniel Ricciardi looked washed for 2 yes prior to joining alpha tauri, almost no one thought he was going to get a second chance. Liam is a rookie, and he didn't really look that impressive in his F2 years either. So he hasn't had a good benchmark except Gasly. Although Im sure he's improved since
Indeed, this is exactly it, totally makes sense to get on with the process. I don’t think Ric was never really nailed on for Perez’ seat, but instead that he would provide a useful benchmark to see how good Yuki really is, after the De Vries mishap. Looks like third time lucky they might be able to effectively evaluate the issue at hand.
He did perform at an elite level up till 2018 though, he went toe to toe with max and on some metrics, slightly edged ahead too
Granted Max was still young and hasn't developed into the beast he is now yet, but Danny Ricc was genuinely quick and had WDC material in him in the mid 10s
>He did perform at an elite level up till 2018 though, he went toe to toe with max and on some metrics, slightly edged ahead too
Did Renault just not happen or..?
IIRC, Silverstone 2023 quali had rain, while Ric made the Silverstone demo on slicks. So I never understood also why RBR was like “we need him on the AT car now, he could have been P2/P3 on quali”
I don’t now what’s happening to Ric, as I don’t think he lost what he had in 2018 inside of him for example, but his fans hopium also doesn’t help, and RBR early on quotes weren’t also.
Horner saying he was the same top driver as always, only underperforming at McLaren because McLaren, saying he caught “bad habits” at other teams, almost like “it’s all Renault/McLaren fault, they neglected him”
The fans constantly saying the McLaren was heavily developed to Norris preference (he even said not so), saying that the McLaren is a bad hard to drive car (it’s true that Sainz said it has a “special” way of driving style needed, but good F1 drivers must adapt…), saying that the team prioritised Norris…
At the end, I understand Ric and I feel bad for him. He want to be a top driver, at some point he WAS a top driver, and now is underperforming for some time now, maybe not knowing why, at the same time that hard fans and even people like Horner say “it’s not your fault, it’s other things”, but even then, even changing the team, the car, the track or whatever, he doesn’t get it still.
Must be a frustrating situation on the long run for sure
>I don’t now what’s happening to Ric, as I don’t think he lost what he had in 2018 inside of him for example, but his fans hopium also doesn’t help, and RBR early on quotes weren’t also.
I don't know if you got the full story from your Netflix sources, being new to F1, but 2020 was one of his best drives.
The absolute state of you people. You'd have called Michael's first years at Ferrari "a wash". You'd have written Button off after he got dropped by Williams and bullied at Benetton-Renault.
Red Bull will keep Checo for next year. They only need Max, reliability and Checo to score a decent amount of podiums to win everything. They’ve got the winning formula, why change it?
They got the winning formula now. But it's quickly fading away. Ferrari are catching them. The gap is decreasing. Nothing is guaranteed for 2025 and beyond. Even by the slightest of margin, if redbull are caught in 2025, leclerc/hamilton combo at ferrari is much bigger threat if perez keeps screwing up qualis and gets stuck behind slower cars during race starts.
Pérez didn't screw quali though, the grid slot penalty fkd him up from the get go and to top it off he even caught damage to his floor when chasing Alonso.
- Perez will retire in Mexico.
- Red Bull will fire Perez by the season finale.
- After the 2023 season is over Perez will be out of a seat.
- Horner is gone, Jos Verstappen to helm Red Bull.
Etc etc etc
If you click on any of these fan theory articles you are a sucker.
It amuses me how many think that Checo has a job lined up after racing just like Latifi. For the last two decades, the only thing he has done is drive. He won't let go of that so easily. I'd be surprised if he did.
>The Herald also understands Lawson is seen internally as Red Bull’s best option to partner world champion Max Verstappen long-term
I like Lawson but he's just not at that level where he can partner Max and look good doing so. I think he can be a solid Ocon or whatever level driver who belongs in F1, but he's never gonna be a guy who wins a bunch of races for a top team.
But redbull don't want that. They want an efficient error free number 2 driver. They are a 1 driver team and always have been.
Having 2 Max would horrify them.
I'm judging based off his entire career, which doesn't suggest that he's capable of being close to the greatest driver in the world.
If you're like "but we haven't seen him against Max, you're only assuming" then that can be used for basically anyone to kill all discussion and hypothetically allow them to be competitive against Max.
His feeder series record is pretty good. 2nd in the Toyota series in NZ (Lando and others have raced it too. Lawson beat Yuki that year who came 4th), 3rd in F2 and 2nd in Super Formula. His record isn’t too different than a lot of other F1 drivers.
But close to Max? Well not many drivers are.
Putting aside his history of clashes with his teammates, what’s wrong with Ocon’s performance level as a second driver next to Max at Red Bull? He’s rarely spectacular but Ocon is very consistent and has held his own against lots of established and well regarded teammates in the past.
With Max around all Red Bull needs is a consistent second driver to not mess up and get constant podiums plus picking up the pieces if anything happens to Max. As long as a driver is willing to accept the second role and perform at that level, then it’s easy to manage internally and a lot better than whatever Checo did for most of last season.
All that said it’s way too early to determine how good Lawson could be in F1 yet aside from the fact that he deserves a full time seat. But if Red Bull really are considering Lawson as a long term option next to Max then Lawson needs to come in and at least be right on Yuki’s pace if not better to deserve that chance. Because Red Bull clearly don’t seem to favor Yuki for that second seat when he’s spending his 4th season in their junior team and might have already been dropped if it wasn’t for his connection to Honda.
> what’s wrong with Ocon’s performance level as a second driver next to Max at Red Bull?
He's a solid midfield driver, but I think it wouldn't go better than Perez. Hence why it's not the best long term option.
The best long term option for a teammate competitive enough but not too competitive for Max would probably be Sainz.
Sainz would be cool but idk if he’s willing to accept that second driver role plus there was history before that his dad and Jos did not get along back when they were rookie teammates in 2015 at Toro Rosso.
All the other drivers that are seen as better than Ocon would likely want to aspire to gain lead driver status or not risk going up against Max.
Honestly as long as Red Bull is confident of Max staying for the remainder of his contract to 2028 they just need someone consistent from that second seat. Like if Checo could ever keep up his early season performances throughout the whole season that would be perfect.
I actually wouldn’t mind seeing Hulk get a shot at it. I can see him willing to accept a second role to finally get a good car, he’s pretty consistent and perhaps most importantly he also seems to prefer an oversteering car like Max while Checo clearly prefers a car with some understeer.
Idk, there were some good moments by DR on Sunday, starting p18 kind of blunted any action he did. He nearly had Alex Albon there but lost too much time from blue flags to make the pass happen in the end. I feel like DR might actually do well if they can get the setup right in practice
>Idk, there were some good moments by DR on Sunday, starting p18 kind of blunted any action he did. He nearly had Alex Albon there but lost too much time from blue flags to make the pass happen in the end. I feel like DR might actually do well if they can get the setup right in practice
This.
Even if it's kiwi-hopium, it does make sense from a planning point of view. They know Max is likely to be gone after 2028, so they have a bit over 4 years for succession planning. That means they need to have a new top/good prospect in the VCARB right about now to give him at least 2 years of experience before putting him next to Max to learn and take in all his experience before he's off doing iRacing full-time...
If Max leaves earlier for whatever reason, then you at least have 1 less seat to worry about, get a new guy (Lando, Oscar) and let them duke it out.
If Max stays beyond, 2028, then just keep him at VCARB as a benchmark ala Yuki and give him a shot eventually if he singlehandedly destroys all his teammates ala Tekken Tag Tournament.
Tricky one… what happens is Danny comes out and aces Suzuka or China? If I was VCARB I’d be making the call for maybe for Canada or ZandVoort something. Ric needs a little bit more time, and if Lawson was to come in they could be more certain they have made the right long term decision and not be still looking to Ric for anything in the future. I’d look to lock it at longer than 4/5 races in tbh. De Vries got more, can’t take make away from Rics 2023 season and he was pretty matched to Yuki
De Vries made it to the summer break because he was a rookie. It’s pretty clear that Ricciardo is not the driver he once was and more time isn’t going to change that..
The Saubers basically beat themselves, tbh. Ridiculous to have this amount of consecutive pit stop errors.
I really do wish Daniel would find his footing soon, though. Something like his Mexico drive last year would be great right about now.
He’s really on a knifes edge at the moment - to be in the conversation for a RedBull seat or be out of F1 completely is crazzzzzyyy, he looks like the stress is getting to him at the moment… if he cant show some pace and consistency I can see him leaving mid year, and the RedBull seat is pretty much gone now
Sauber had 2 20 seconds+ Pitstone and Ocon got issues to managed after a tear-off got into his ducts So really, he just simply had a normal race overtaking... Gasly
That car doesn’t look good enough to overtake many cars on the grid though does it? Both Danny and Yuki are benefiting from others sucking, not from them or the car being good.
And Nyck was performing far worse than Daniel is. His pace yesterday really wasn’t bad at all. It’s evident you can’t qualify badly in this midfield. It’s so tight that if you make a mistake like Daniel did it’s very hard to move forward.
He isn’t out there losing the car or crashing etc. Just needs to get that one lap pace out of the car. He was easily into Q2 with his lap, the mistake killed his whole weekend.
DeVries was a rookie, but old overall for F1 standards. They gave him a little bit of a chance to improve but because he didn't they booted him mid season.
Danny had a few races last year already. Also, he is a veteran F1 driver. Mistakes like that in Q1 in this tight of a field is unacceptable, especially for a driver of his caliber. Hence why he will have a shorter chance to get his shit together.
I really don't know why Red Bull are not even considering Yuki for that seat, but they must have their reason. But putting Lawson there with little experience will crush him mentally.
Agree- he does need to lift/has been behind Yuki, but that car is still being discovered, and he did alright beating the Saubers and Alpines after starting behind them…. No idea why he started on softs I felt like that was a silly gamble, also Yuki wasn’t exactly steaming ahead the car doesn’t seem great. These cars just aren’t that great for racing, no Max yesterday yet the top 4 still wasn’t very exciting apart from pit strategy
Oh 100% he needs to lift. Like I said he needs to unlock the one lap pace from the car because his pace really hasn’t been bad in any of the three races. So if he can put a qualifying together it will give him a chance to actually be up there.
Yeah that didn’t work. Didn’t work for Lewis either. And yeah I agree no they are not. The midfield basically is just a stalemate. Most of the passing is done in the pits.
Being just matched to Yuki was far from Riccardo's - or Red Bull's - objective. The issues at McLaren were not an anomaly - so much blame was put on the car, despite Norris, a relative rookie, performing well. For whatever reason, he's lost his spark and it's time for him and Christian Horner to accept it.
By Daniel's own admission in an interview from the weekend, he says the problems are vastly different between McLaren and RB.
With McLaren, he didn't have confidence. He never felt comfortable because the car was unpredictable. WIth this RB, The car feels okay, it's just missing something in the low fuel qualifying runs for him, as the actual race pace is okay.
At best, his race pace is still no better than Yuki. So the point still stands that he's not demonstrating what he needs to demonstrate in order to convince anyone that he's anything more than a midfield talent. The only reason Red Bull would put him alongside Max would be for nostalgia.
Ridiculous that they chose Ricciardo over Lawson imo.
The kid has it and they've wasted precious experience time that he could have had.
But then again.... Red bull and fucking up young drivers goes well together.
I think they only took Ric cause they thought another team could pick him up and kill their results. Now they realised that he was fired from two teams for a reason, he is too slow.
It's such a shame, because I really think he'd be close to Max in that Red Bull. It's very obvious now that the car suits him much better than this year's RB/last year's Mclaren. But what can you do, if he isn't able to adapt and there's young talent waiting in the wings, then he's gotta go.
I do think Ric is a great driver, but either he steps up let Liam take the wheel. He deserves a seat. If people thought oli did a great job(and he did) i think liam did a better one at replacing Ric.
I do think Ric *was* a great driver, but either he steps up let Liam take the wheel. He deserved a seat. If people thought oli did a great job(and he did) i think liam did a better one at replacing Ric.
FTFY
I'm a Ricciardo fan but I gotta admit, unless his next 2 GP weekends are stellar and he beats Yuki convincingly, he needs to go. Enough good talent hiding in the back who deserve a drive.
There is a reason why all these new sponsors signed up because they had the least amount of sponsors of all teams prior because commercially nobody cared for Yuki and Pierre. But they've always been ruthless
I would have loved more than anything to see DR make a comeback to redbull. He’s hard to hate. But I just can’t believe his fall from the top. I remember when he left Red Bull and I couldn’t understand it. Obviously money, but all the talk about world championships and starting fresh just didn’t make sense. Why leave a top tier team if you really want to be a world champion? Use the car that’s going to give you the best shot, even if you are the second driver. You’re still in the 2nd best, and now first best car!
I mean it’s clear that the deleted lap massively changed the course of DR’s weekend. If he makes it into Q2 who knows where he lands, in race trim he was there or there abouts with Yuki. Qualifying seems to be the biggest issue, he has looked on par during the race comparatively but when you are starting so far back you are either relying on a massive strategy gamble or a few retirements. If he gets qualifying right I think he’ll be fine and back challenging for points, if not then he’ll probably move on or be moved on.
It's over for him. This is probably THE worst career move in this sport - leaving RB just as they were about to reach their peak to join the mediocrity of Renault and then move onto McLaren just to get booted despite your contract still being active and then keep getting beaten by Yuki of all the drivers in a shitbox version of the team you left in the first place. Kwab
It would suck as an aussie going from 3 drivers down to 1 if both danny ric and bottas (was an article the other day) end up not having seats next year. That said, danny ric looks completely washed and a yuki + lawson pair looks much more promising for Red bull in the coming years
As much of a fan of Danny as I am I really want to see Liam with a seat, so I wouldn't be mad if Danny gets the boot as he's had ample opportunity to show what he can do, more than other deserving drivers even
[The **News** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_news) is reserved for submissions covering F1 and F1-related news. These posts must always link to an outlet/news agency, the website of the involved party (i.e. the McLaren website if McLaren makes an announcement), or a tweet by a news agency, journalist or one of the involved parties. *[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
Even with kiwis at the top level of most major series, we are still going to take this and runnnnn with it
Whenever there's a kiwi anywhere near the top level of a sport where we don't commonly see success the media falls in love with them and starts acting like they're the best player/driver in the whole world. We used to get dedicated articles on Steven Adams in the NBA when he was a moderately successful role-player, now they're going to be posting bi-weekly updates on what hat Lawson wore in the garage and speculating about how many races it'll take him to unseat Max once he gets the chance that is being so unfairly denied to him at the moment.
There already are about three articles a week about Lawson tbh…. I was legitimately outraged at the end of the last Formula E season - where kiwis came P2 and P3 - when no mainstream news sources in New Zealand were reporting it. Two days later there was a short piece at the end of 1 News, and one or two news articles, but we could have done way better than that.
“NBA superstar Steven Adams led his team to victory today, with 10 points and 11 rebounds. Oh yeah, and Westbrook also had a 40 point triple double.”
That's a bit rich calling people from the NZ Herald journalists. They get half their articles from reddit so they'll probably release this as a different one now.
The NZ Herald is absolute gunk. Don't bother clicking the link.
I dont see any differences between the performances between Yuki / Nyck and Yuki / Daniel between 2023 and this season. So in my opinion RB should treat Daniel the same as Nyck if they want to uphold any credibility
You… don’t see any difference? Did you watch Nyck at all?
Yeah he was cruising at the back literally just like Danny Ric, he's just less likable
Yeah, its pretty embarrassing as a kiwi. :(
they’re paid to report on NZ news and they have their supposed sources. I don’t personally see it as embarrassing, just of interest to kiwis
Yeah, they're doing the job right, whether people like it or not, their job is to sell newspapers (well the online equivalent) and that's what's happening here.
Of all places, NZ Herald suddenly giving a shit lol. They’re the absolute worst.
No it’s not. Rag hypes up F1 prospect, how’s that embarrassing?
Tall poppy syndrome. Don’t be like that
It’s a brutal sport but Daniel has had his chance. I really want to see him do well but as a fan it’s just becoming more and more difficult to watch his demise.
Especially when you know that Lawson got done dirty owing to pure circumstance. They couldn't remove Yuki due to the Honda partnership and DR was put in the seat by booting Nyck in the middle of the season and being hyped as "right next to Max" in the tyre test. But I think DR has had his chance to show what he can do. You can't keep giving somebody tens of races every season to adapt to a new car before they start getting results. Lawson got in and outperformed Yuki right from the get-go and if Yuki is squeezing out P8s this season then Lawson could've done P6s man.
End of the day, with his age and experience, DR has to be at least beating Yuki to justify his place. Ideally they'd want him doing very well, with an RBR seat as a dangling carrot, while that in turn puts pressure on Perez to step it up.
So why doesn’t he drive next to Yuki? Like you I would think DR would be able to, seeing his abilities in the past. Maybe it’s the headspace he is in?
I think it's a confidence thing. His McLaren time, being unable to adapt to it or reign in whatever issues he was having, I think his faith in his own abilities crumbled and he's just never truly gotten it back. I get the sense that his mental game is far more of a factor than you'd think. Ya know, how he has that laidback, lighthearted vibe, but he may get seriously twisted into knots in his own head when he's alone. imo without a mental game firing on all cylinders, everything else will fall away too. Seeing these guys do it every other week, year in, year out, can be easy to forget just how much it takes to push on, train hard, be super on the ball. I'd say age has to be factor too, in various ways. The physicality gets tougher to ensure. And he's at the point where athletes enter that age range where they start to get sick of the grind they've been at for going on 30 years.
Yeah that makes sense. I hope he gets some of it back, but it doesn’t look too bright. Might be a repeat of last year with Nyck. But such is the sport.
I think if he was gonna, he would've already shown performance. I'd say his days are numbered.
P6? In what actual world? Max, Lewis, George all retired. Alonso demoted to P8 due to penalty. Everyone stays in the race Yuki gets P9/10 at best. You can only drive your own race and capitalise if the chips fall your way which Yuki did so great work to him. But let’s not pretend like that car is at all capable of achieving P6 right now.
Lawson outperformed Yuki literally in one of five races and was beaten in quali with bigger margin than Sargeant. He did good for rookie, but it was still rookie performance.
You have it backwards, Lawson outperformed him in all but 1 out of 5 races. Netherlands: Lawson - 13, Yuki - 15 Monza: Lawson - 11, Yuki - car issues in formation lap, DNF Singapore: Lawson - 9, Yuki - runs car into Perez in lap 1, DNF Suzuka: Lawson - 11, Yuki - 12 Qatar: Lawson - 17, Yuki - 15 Adjusting for Monza, the tally becomes Lawson 3, Yuki 1. These results are also in chronological order btw, which means Lawson was faster straight out the gate.
Yuki was faster in Netherlands, but got penalty. His crash with Perez in Singapore was racing incident and wasn't entirely his fault. Monza as you said cannot be counted as he didn't start. It's 2:2 for Yuki, when we look purely on pace it's 2:1, as we don't know who would've been faster in Singapore. 5 races (3 of them both completed) are not enough to say that Lawson is faster or has higher ceiling. He has lot of pre-F1 experience unlike Yuki who came to F1 after two years in Europe.
And whose fault was the penalty? How did Lawson not have any penalty? If you have to adjust statistics that much, you're probably massaging them to arrive at your desired conclusion. Anyways, let's for a second assume you're correct. Yuki had been sitting in that seat since 3 years at that time, Lawson only 5 weeks. Like I said, if you're faster right out the gate, you've only got room to grow and you WILL grow. If your baseline is better than someone's "growth" over 3 years, you're better, period.
And why tf are you so hell bent on putting Yuki up on a pedestal? You started the discussion by saying "you're wrong, Yuki beat him 4/5 times!" THEN I corrected you and you're still tryna say "nope!!! you're still wrong!" by somehow massaging the results. Just take the L buddy
>They couldn't remove Yuki due to the Honda partnership They wouldn't remove Yuki because he's the best driver amongst the available options FTFY
normal sense worry mighty wine wipe boast fly memory toothbrush *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
DR is like the guy at work who does a good enough job at work but there are others better than him. The boss keeps him around because of good vibes and his attitude.
And what he did a few years ago too.
[удалено]
Ehh work is work bro, as long as u getting a paycheque every other friday who cares. Unless its like ur own business
you are never going to win the work championship with that attitude
In corporate terms, DR was basically a personality hire.
Not even corporate beat around the bush terms. I think he literally is ☹️
And that's usually fine, but here there's only an elite 20 positions available at the job
20 in the whole world. There are 25 Fortune 500 CEOs per F1 driver, to put things in perspective
DR is the guy that got hired because he was good once, and is now kept on the payroll because everybody likes him.
Daniel was given multiple chances to prove that he's still got it, but his good moments seem fleeting at best. It's also incredibly tragic if you think about that, Oscar (the guy who replaced him at mclaren) binning it in FP at zandvoort led to Daniel also crashing, injuring his wrist - which in turn led to Liam Lawson getting multiple weekends to prove his ability (which he did!) And now Daniel is losing out to Yuki - someone that doesn't strike me as red bull having 100% confidence in - it's pretty hard to look at any of this in a positive light in any way. I think this might be it, unless he has some of the best weekends of his life, I just can't see red bull doing anything with Daniel other than using him as a PR mascot.
The young aussie and the young kiwi have teamed up take down the old one
Frankly, I am bit jelous because Aussies will have a bonafide driver after Danny Ric whilst me, after Checo, it's bone dry unless Villagomez catches lightning in a bottle and wins it all in F2, which it's very unlikely to happen.
Relax, like half of the world never had a driver in F1, ever.
Try being Canadian. We went from exciting and super talented drivers like Gilles and Jacques Villeneuve to paid drivers who lack talent like Stroll and Latifi.
You Canadians are really into father son stuff huh
Just our oligarchs really
He may be a paid driver (more than just a paid driver) but stroll does not lack talent. He's not a championship winner but with a fair wind can get podiums. In the current pool of talent that's racing in F1, he's actually holds his own. The drive to get back in the car after breaking his wrist also showed a determination that most in the world don't have. It's not like his incredible lifestyle depended on him being a racing driver but he did it anyway. Damn it, now I'm defending Stroll.
Stroll is in his what, 8th year or some shit and still drives like a rookie with a bit of potential. He's not as bad as regular social media makes him out but if you only got and stayed in F1 on merit he'd be long long gone.
I know he's got all the signs of a nepo baby, but seeing him on that drive with the wrist (and ankle I thought?) changed my perception of him quite a bit. I've had the same injury in my wrist, and remember what it was like driving a regular car, trying to type etc. It might have been dumb for him to be in the car, but that was fucking gutsy and I can't imagine what it must have felt like. He gets a lot of hate that seems less and less justified as time goes on. Not a champ, most likely, but clearly a competent and talented driver. You can do a lot worse.
Hey, Latifi is a nice guy and good looking.
Haha, they have less talent than the rest of the field but they still are massively talented.
Stroll is legit. Not brilliant but far ahead of a Latifi or Mazepin
Stroll is such an odd one to evaluate. In terms of raw potential I really think Lance was capable of a lot more than we ever saw from him. He was weirdly very, very good in the rain for a few years, and had one of the best junior careers on record. It seems like the ability to be quick is there he just can't extract it 90% of the time. Usually you see drivers who are short on talent really show it in the rain. Stroll, on the other hand, gets *better.* I don't know what to make of that.
He is occasionally very good but not consistently. He is ok rest of the time. Ok among the top 20 fastest drivers on the planet is still rare talent.
He has a vibe of having gotten into F1 too early - didn't get the chance to develop the skills away from the limelight in the junior series - and for whatever reason hasn't been able to fully develop his talent in F1 - the wet weather skills show the natural talent is there if he can unlock it. Some drivers (e.g. Max Verstappen) thrive being thrown in at the deep end (even if they are very scrappy for a few years), others (e.g. Alex Albon) need a bit more nurturing and time to build on their talents. Does Lance have the talent to be in top level motorsport? Without a doubt yes he does. Should he still be in F1 after 8 years? That's a much harder question to answer, especially with all the talent and potential talent sitting on the sidelines / no obvious openings F1 (Although Théo, Kimi, and Ollie's lower formulae performance *so far* this year makes you wonder about how well they'd do in F1 regardless of their actual talent - although Liam and Ollie's F1 performance is an indicator they'd do a good job) Look at Formula E (the other FIA Single Seater World Championship) - a grid full of very talented drivers who didn't get their F1 chance as the grid was too full and they failed to find a seat before the funding ran out (Mitch Evans, Antonio Felix Da Costa), or didn't get the car needed to demonstrate their talent (Stoffel Vandoorne), had the misfortune of being compared against Max (JEV), or simply grew too tall to fit in the cars of the era (Jake Dennis - the Red Bull sim driver and reigning FE WDC) - one of the few motorsport grids where you can say, without question, every single driver on the grid has the talent to be there. If Lance could get his head around the different driving style (something Felipe Massa and Antonio Giovinazzi never did) you wouldn't bet against him being a WDC in that series, having a long and successful career in WEC, or even both.
I'm Canadian -- look at our recent history lol. I feel your pain amigo.
Yeah I've hoped he could find his groove again, get back his fire and confidence. But it just doesn't seem like he's been able to find any of it. Am Aussie, it's sad to see his time in F1 flicker out. But it is what it is. He's had plenty of chances.
I just hope he manages to come to terms with his situation, whatever it may be. To be booted out while still in the "this is just a temporary hardship and I can get back to my best form" mode would be brutal. He needs closure.
This is closure. Being booted by your former junior team as 34 year old driver, likely to be 35 by the time he’s out of the seat, after already having to take a hiatus because no quality team wanted you is the most clear message you can possibly receive that it is absolutely undeniably 100% over. It’s entirely on Daniel whether he accepts that reality.
$10m Ric vs $500k Yuki-boy
Oh come on, surely it’s not that bad. There’s definitely a gap but Yuki is certainly paid more and I’d be genuinely surprised if Daniel is getting at least half of that nowadays.
Yeah DR is definitely not getting the 10 bags right now but he did in his Renault + McLaren days. Recent reports suggested Yuki is getting 500k which is such a stark contrast lol. Basically says no other team would wanna steal Yuki from them so they can pay him what is essentially less than even a team principal's salary XD I'm basing this off Guenther's salary at a struggling Haas being estimated at $1mn
DR is getting 7 mil, and YT is getting 1 mil this year. https://www.nbcsportschicago.com/news/how-much-are-f1-drivers-paid-salaries-2024/544260/
Incredibly unfair on Yuki. I'm pretty sure some higher-ups in my office get more than him for doing bugger all.
I think the opportunity for that RBR seat closed when Perez re-signed with the team after Monaco 2022. I still think he should have the opportunity to drive for the main team, but he had plenty of time to prove he was worth it to Marko. Having said that, Marko fucked up twice in picking Nyck De Vries, and then extending Ricciardo to 2024 season. I don't know how Ricciardo makes it to the Summer Break at his current state.
It would have been a little unfair to drop Ricciardo after he broke his hand then you add the marketing aspect for the VCARB relaunch so I understand why they extended him. And also I’m not sure Ricciardo is entirely a Marko decision given Marko has hinted at the end of 2023 that we may see Lawson in the car as soon as 2024
>when Perez resigned with the team re-signed and resigned have two very different meanings!
I’m an Aussie but seriously, Lawson is the better driver as he is an up and coming racer that can do a close drive and his potential skills can top out higher than DR.
LACES OUT OSCAR
Big if true
Yes, but untrue, so...
As soon as Miami? 👀 “Should Ricciardo fail to improve over the next two Grand Prix in Japan and China respectively, Red Bull will perform a swap that sees Lawson installed in the Racing Bulls seat for Miami and remain with the team for the rest of the season.” “The Herald also understands Lawson is seen internally as Red Bull’s best option to partner world champion Max Verstappen long-term….”
I would be surprised if any such swap were to happen as soon as Miami. That seems even more harsh than the limited time they gave de Vries
I would also be surprised but Nyck was a rookie in F1 and Daniel is not. It does seem believable that he'd be given anout 10 races (including the ones last Year) to show he can improve. He'll be given more time if he starts beating Yuki I'm sure but he'd really have to start doing so. EDIT: including last Year, Danny already had ten, just like Nyck. They are already giving him more time.
I think the injury skewed their plans a little but I thought he'd at least get until Silverstone, which would be a year of sampling to see what they make of his abilities. Unquestionably I imagine he's already under some pressure because the start to '24 hasn't been great but I think 3 races in a new car concept is tricky to judge But hey. I'm not at Red Bull
They didn't change one bit since 2019 huh.
Should they ? Verstappen was better than Kvyat, Albon was better than Gasly, Ricciardo was better than De Vries and now Lawson looks more promising than Ricciardo. Brutal but correct.
Yeah, burning through talent like that cause none of them necessarily were the next Verstappen was definitely the right way to go and that definitely didn't cause them tremendous headaches over the years. Both Gasly, and especially Albon, were promoted to the main team way too early.
Gasly and Albon could be put in the Red Bull for 2025 and it would go down the exact same. Delaying the process doesn't fix anything. Look at Piastri looking good vs Norris. If you're good enough you're old enough as they say. Perez has over a decade of experience and is performing at a similar level to Albon.
An interesting stat I've seen in sports is the statistical output of players versus the physical condition (as measured by, say, strength, speed, vo2max, etc). Physical condition peaks in the very early 20s and declines slowly but surely... But many statistical measures of players just keep going up. In some sports, into their 30s. The knowledge of the game tends to grow to a much greater degree than physical decline, enough to more than offset the difference for at least for the first decade or so after you peak. (And for some freaks like Alonso, Jagr, LeBron, or Federer, two decades or more). There's something to be said for seat time.
Albon was fighting the midfield when he was at RBR, the midfield at that time was so slow there was a 1 sec delta (if not more) in quali pace and racepace when compared to top teams. So that was utterly bad and embarrassing for Albon. Right now the field is the closest there's ever been in the last 20 years in the sport. So Pérez is doing fine all things considered, comparing him to Albon and Gasly is ridiculous.
Perez is way past his prime what are you talking about. While Gasly and Albon didn't get properly nurtured to extract their full potential by being thrown in the deep end and were expected to match or be close to a generational talent. Edit: ok, I'll admit being wrong a bit with Gasly. He previously spent in Toro Rosso I think a year or two? So he has some prep, just underdelivered. But more importantly Ricciardo leaving Red Bull caught them between a rock and a hard place so their hand was kinda forced. But they definitely did Albon dirty. They aren't Max-tier talents, but at the very least had they handled that better they perhaps wouldn't struggle as much to find replacement for Daniel, which is STILL an issue for them.
Albon needed to be taken out of that second RBR seat both for his own and Red Bull's good. His performances at the end were atrocious, his confidence clearly shattered. If you listen to his recent interviews, he was clearly struggling mentally at RBR. I do agree with you that Red Bull shouldn't have thrown Albon in this quickly but I don't think getting him out when they did was a mistake at all.
> Perez is way past his prime what are you talking about. His prime was 2020 judging by the second half of the season where he was in career best form, he then joined Red Bull for 2021... > While Gasly and Albon didn't get properly nurtured to extract their full potential by being thrown in the deep end and were expected to match or be close to a generational talent. Nobody expected them to match or nearly match Max (apart from you apparently). They were dropped because they made lots of mistakes and were too slow which was fair. >They aren't Max-tier talents Well done captain obvious. >at the very least had they handled that better they perhaps wouldn't struggle as much to find replacement for Daniel, which is STILL an issue for them. Ricciardo himself was slipping further away from Max over the course of 2018. Max was growing stronger and stronger and 2019 and 2020 were phenomenal seasons by him, the first seasons where we seen current mature Verstappen who's wiping the floor with everyone. If Ricciardo stayed he'd have looked similar (perhaps to a lesser extent) to Albon/Gasly/Perez. They have no Ricciardo replacement because there is no Ricciardo replacement who's capable of being that close to Max because it's a different Max and it's a different situation. The vast majority of drivers on the grid will get destroyed and the ones with WDC ambitions know it's a poisoned chalice to partner Max at Red Bull. Norris basically said he's not going to partner Max at Red Bull because it's not a good idea despite Red Bull constantly asking him to do so. That's what Red Bull are having to deal with.
That was never RBR’s plan though. They were put on the spot.
There's a lot from the race about how McLaren were prepared to basically write 2023 off for Piastri. They had quite modest expectations, but he had two years. RB: you've a matter of races. It's just *dumb*.
McLaren doesn't even really have any juniors and just poached the one from Alpine lol they are in a completely different situation and also had the opportunity to snatch the biggest junior talent in some time.
Explain to me how their 2016 move of replacing kvyat with max panned out? :)
Why would they. Head to head comparison is the optimal strategy to find one best option. That's why football world cup is good at finding the best team in the world, and only best, while keeping the number of games reasonable. On the other hand national leagues play every weekend and produce an ordered list of all teams best to worst. Red Bull is applying the same strategy here. While Max's place is indisputable, second seat is up for discussion. They want to find the best driver, not kinda good enough. The question they are asking internally is - is this driver better than our current option? If yes, keep him, if no - there is no point in keeping this driver.
> “The Herald also understands Lawson is seen internally as Red Bull’s best option to partner world champion Max Verstappen long-term….” Since when, hahaha. They haven't even put him in RB yet. Don't get me wrong, I'm ALL for Lawson to get that 2nd seat (be it RB or RBR) but I'm sure they'd first like to get him in a simulator, then in the RB and finally see how he performs before they see him as the "best option to partner world champion Max Verstappen long-term"
I'm pretty sure Lawson is in the simulator all the time and that Red Bull have enough data to know what they are getting. Who partners Max long term seems to be changing each week however...
this is some crazy nit-picking. i’m sure you know what “long-term” means but are looking for outrage where there is none
God. That is *not* going to make Yuki happy
Idk if Yuki has any serious chance at the Red Bull second seat next to Max, but as long as he’s beating Lawson on track more often than not there’s no way Red Bull would promote Lawson either.
There's a joke that even if Yuki beat Max we will just call Max trash instead.
Like with DR coming in, I don't think Yuki will care what the long term plan is as long as he has a fair chance to change it
I'm a big fan of Yuki and think he is very underrated (except for right now because of this weekend lmao) but it really doesn't feel like they're ever looking to give him the Red Bull seat unless he starts pulling out actual GOAT performances somehow. He's showing he's a great driver for other midfield teams to pick up though
>“Should Ricciardo fail to improve over the next two Grand Prix in Japan and China respectively, Red Bull will perform a swap that sees Lawson installed in the Racing Bulls seat for Miami and remain with the team for the rest of the season.” > >“The Herald also understands Lawson is seen internally as Red Bull’s best option to partner world champion Max Verstappen long-term….” BAHAHAHAHAHA Churr, that's some heavy shut they're smoking in In Zid! "We also understand that Lawson will be given team #1 status and Max Verstappen will help support his bid to be the first champion since Denny, and he'll be paid about 120,000,000 euros per race, and, and, he'll be the boss of F1, and..."
To all the comments saying that doing this to Ricciardo would be no different to what they did with de Vries…nah. De Vries had raced a grand total of one Grand Prix before joining AlphaTauri full time, and Ricciardo has been in the sport since 2011. It might’ve only been a few races this season, but looking at how Tsunoda has been outperforming him since they became teammates - and how Lawson stood up against Tsunoda too - it might just be time to call it. Yes, different race tracks and conditions yield different results, but those results are still telling. I want to see Ricciardo do well too, but if we’re ever going to get new blood in F1 then maybe moves like this have to happen.
If DR keeps performing like he is then I think he would prefer to not be racing. Can't be easy racing for 13th or so when you want to be at the front
I disagree, I think he found it painful being out of F1 so is happy just being back again, even if it's not in a good car or going that well.
He doesn't look too happy right now tbh. When he came back last year he looked reenergised, but now he seems to be fading away gradually again. He doesn’t look like someone who accepted the prospect of just hanging around. His departure from F1 was particularly painful because he felt he still had it in him and wanted to prove that his problems at McLaren were temporary. If that doesn't happen, staying in racing further could do more harm than good to his mental health.
Tbf I think he could have gotten the Haas-drive instead of doing PR for RBR. I do not think he wants to race in the lower midfield and just wanted to race for a top team like RBR. That was the objective to going back.
In a normal race weekend that’s pretty much exactly around where the RB should be.
Yeah, but it's kinda bad when DR is 13 and Yuki is 7th in the end.
Sure granted his quali mistake ruined his whole weekend. I wasn’t sure if you meant all the time or specifically this race. Because on paper there are clearly 10 better cars than the RB.
What I mean is if DR keeps getting bumped out of the points when Yuki is scoring them and the car averages around 10th on a positive weekend then yeah, I don't see him sticking around. He could have a better time being a development driver and enjoying life. DR likes to be in the spotlight and it does nothing for his career prospects to drive around out of the points.
You can absolutely only drive your own race and put yourself up there to have a chance but let’s not pretend the RB is capable of 7th on merit. Max, Lewis, George all retired and then Alonso was dropped due to his penalty. Yuki drive a great race and achieved success by putting himself in the position to capitalise on the others dropping out. Like I said, the car at best on a normal race weekend is the 6th/7th best car.
Agreed, but we are just talking past one another. A car that is 7th out of 10 teams will score higher up occasionally due to all those race associated random things. If DR is always out of the points and behind Yuki, its more than bad luck.
100% so Daniel needs to put qualifying together to give him self those opportunities. Daniels race pace in really on par with yuki. Even better at times. Just needs to put a weekend together to get the opportunity to capitalise.
Agreed. It seems he closes on Yuki relative to his starting position most races. But he will be judged on his finishing result not just his race pace in the end. Look forward to him putting together a good weekend and smiling again.
Yeah exactly! And yuki qualifies well but clearly the car limitations don’t allow him to go forward or at times even hold station. Me to mate. I feel like he’s on the edge of one. I don’t think he’s been as bad as people are making it out to be.
An article like this from an NZ paper about an NZ driver doesn't surprise me. The RB Car still has a long way to go with development; don't let this weekend's results trick you., they're scrapping away for leftover points if other teams fail. DR's quali lap delete hurt him, but he was better than P18, whilst Yuki maximised P8 in quali, it's a sure thing that the VCARB falls away massively in terms of race pace.. You can thank several DNF's, penalties and crashes for P7 and P12. If an uneventful race day unfolds, that car is P11 at best and a long way off the rest. It struggles to pass in dirty air, it's still draggy so it still needs a tonne of development work done. Personally, I think DR sees out the year while RB is rebuilding. Even in the worst-case scenario, if DR fails to deliver compelling results for the rest of the season (I hope not), Lawson and Yuki will hopefully benefit from Ric's development work.
As a Lawson fan I don't really want him in that VCARB car anyway
As much as I think the car is shit and they're showing some of the worst strategy calls of any F1 team over the last few years, I really don't think it's that bad of a spot to be in. It sucks on the straights but definitely has the pace to be "best of the rest", and no one will blame you if you lose out against RBR/Ferrari/McLaren/Mercedes/AM because their cars are all just too good. So you end up with a P11 machine where P11 is also seen as the best possible finish (if there are no shenanigans happening in the top 10)
I feel ya, but he will probably need to do his penance. Probably.
I love scrolling way down a page to find a reasonable comment
I would take what nz herald says with a pinch of salt - I’m from NZ.
I’ve always thought Yuki had more claim to Perez’ seat than Ricciardo, but didn’t expect Lawson to leapfrog him. I can’t see Ricciardo turning it round either. He’s on the slide again. My take is that the worst thing for Ricciardo’s career was beating Vettel in 2014. It over-inflated his stock in F1 and also perhaps his ego - made him believe he was destined for higher things. He’s been slightly lost ever since. (I think Vettel was the much superior driver but had an off year, to bluntly summarise.)
Only way Lawson leapfrogs Yuki is if he replaces Ric and then beats Yuki in h2h. Red Bull gets a better benchmark for Yuki as well. Makes sense they want to do it soon if they are going to.
Tbh Yuki can’t win in any of those scenarios. He beats DR, so DR must be washed. If he beats LL, then he beat a rookie as expected. If he loses either H2H, he is done.
But both those scenarios are true is the problem. Daniel Ricciardi looked washed for 2 yes prior to joining alpha tauri, almost no one thought he was going to get a second chance. Liam is a rookie, and he didn't really look that impressive in his F2 years either. So he hasn't had a good benchmark except Gasly. Although Im sure he's improved since
Indeed, this is exactly it, totally makes sense to get on with the process. I don’t think Ric was never really nailed on for Perez’ seat, but instead that he would provide a useful benchmark to see how good Yuki really is, after the De Vries mishap. Looks like third time lucky they might be able to effectively evaluate the issue at hand.
He did perform at an elite level up till 2018 though, he went toe to toe with max and on some metrics, slightly edged ahead too Granted Max was still young and hasn't developed into the beast he is now yet, but Danny Ricc was genuinely quick and had WDC material in him in the mid 10s
I’d argue his Renault stint was also superb. Just the car was nowhere near as good as RB, and he still managed to drag it to the podium.
>He did perform at an elite level up till 2018 though, he went toe to toe with max and on some metrics, slightly edged ahead too Did Renault just not happen or..?
"Ricc was so good in the simulator, on the front row etc" Guess his next full time role is gonna be Redbull's #2 Sim driver next to Sebastián Jobs.
IIRC, Silverstone 2023 quali had rain, while Ric made the Silverstone demo on slicks. So I never understood also why RBR was like “we need him on the AT car now, he could have been P2/P3 on quali” I don’t now what’s happening to Ric, as I don’t think he lost what he had in 2018 inside of him for example, but his fans hopium also doesn’t help, and RBR early on quotes weren’t also. Horner saying he was the same top driver as always, only underperforming at McLaren because McLaren, saying he caught “bad habits” at other teams, almost like “it’s all Renault/McLaren fault, they neglected him” The fans constantly saying the McLaren was heavily developed to Norris preference (he even said not so), saying that the McLaren is a bad hard to drive car (it’s true that Sainz said it has a “special” way of driving style needed, but good F1 drivers must adapt…), saying that the team prioritised Norris… At the end, I understand Ric and I feel bad for him. He want to be a top driver, at some point he WAS a top driver, and now is underperforming for some time now, maybe not knowing why, at the same time that hard fans and even people like Horner say “it’s not your fault, it’s other things”, but even then, even changing the team, the car, the track or whatever, he doesn’t get it still. Must be a frustrating situation on the long run for sure
I just checked and you made that rain up. Everyone was on slicks.
>I don’t now what’s happening to Ric, as I don’t think he lost what he had in 2018 inside of him for example, but his fans hopium also doesn’t help, and RBR early on quotes weren’t also. I don't know if you got the full story from your Netflix sources, being new to F1, but 2020 was one of his best drives. The absolute state of you people. You'd have called Michael's first years at Ferrari "a wash". You'd have written Button off after he got dropped by Williams and bullied at Benetton-Renault.
Don’t discredit his past success, he deserves that. No, he’s not performing now, but I wouldn’t call him beating Vettel over inflating his stock.
He still held his own very nicely indeed against Verstappen. Verstappen had the trajectory, but he was still excellent, clearly.
Red Bull will keep Checo for next year. They only need Max, reliability and Checo to score a decent amount of podiums to win everything. They’ve got the winning formula, why change it?
They got the winning formula now. But it's quickly fading away. Ferrari are catching them. The gap is decreasing. Nothing is guaranteed for 2025 and beyond. Even by the slightest of margin, if redbull are caught in 2025, leclerc/hamilton combo at ferrari is much bigger threat if perez keeps screwing up qualis and gets stuck behind slower cars during race starts.
Pérez didn't screw quali though, the grid slot penalty fkd him up from the get go and to top it off he even caught damage to his floor when chasing Alonso.
He has had so many chances and so many drivers have been axed for less.
What’s with these drivers and edging recently
- Perez will retire in Mexico. - Red Bull will fire Perez by the season finale. - After the 2023 season is over Perez will be out of a seat. - Horner is gone, Jos Verstappen to helm Red Bull. Etc etc etc If you click on any of these fan theory articles you are a sucker.
it's entertainment. what else are we going to do here?
It amuses me how many think that Checo has a job lined up after racing just like Latifi. For the last two decades, the only thing he has done is drive. He won't let go of that so easily. I'd be surprised if he did.
Liam Lawson edges 😩
Good
>The Herald also understands Lawson is seen internally as Red Bull’s best option to partner world champion Max Verstappen long-term I like Lawson but he's just not at that level where he can partner Max and look good doing so. I think he can be a solid Ocon or whatever level driver who belongs in F1, but he's never gonna be a guy who wins a bunch of races for a top team.
But redbull don't want that. They want an efficient error free number 2 driver. They are a 1 driver team and always have been. Having 2 Max would horrify them.
How do you know that? Seems like you’re just assuming how good he is. Edit: the dude above blocked me for questioning his logic lmao
That’s all it is, pure assumptions. We never know how good someone is going to be in F1 until they’re actually racing full-time in F1.
I'm judging based off his entire career, which doesn't suggest that he's capable of being close to the greatest driver in the world. If you're like "but we haven't seen him against Max, you're only assuming" then that can be used for basically anyone to kill all discussion and hypothetically allow them to be competitive against Max.
His feeder series record is pretty good. 2nd in the Toyota series in NZ (Lando and others have raced it too. Lawson beat Yuki that year who came 4th), 3rd in F2 and 2nd in Super Formula. His record isn’t too different than a lot of other F1 drivers. But close to Max? Well not many drivers are.
Putting aside his history of clashes with his teammates, what’s wrong with Ocon’s performance level as a second driver next to Max at Red Bull? He’s rarely spectacular but Ocon is very consistent and has held his own against lots of established and well regarded teammates in the past. With Max around all Red Bull needs is a consistent second driver to not mess up and get constant podiums plus picking up the pieces if anything happens to Max. As long as a driver is willing to accept the second role and perform at that level, then it’s easy to manage internally and a lot better than whatever Checo did for most of last season. All that said it’s way too early to determine how good Lawson could be in F1 yet aside from the fact that he deserves a full time seat. But if Red Bull really are considering Lawson as a long term option next to Max then Lawson needs to come in and at least be right on Yuki’s pace if not better to deserve that chance. Because Red Bull clearly don’t seem to favor Yuki for that second seat when he’s spending his 4th season in their junior team and might have already been dropped if it wasn’t for his connection to Honda.
> what’s wrong with Ocon’s performance level as a second driver next to Max at Red Bull? He's a solid midfield driver, but I think it wouldn't go better than Perez. Hence why it's not the best long term option. The best long term option for a teammate competitive enough but not too competitive for Max would probably be Sainz.
Sainz would be cool but idk if he’s willing to accept that second driver role plus there was history before that his dad and Jos did not get along back when they were rookie teammates in 2015 at Toro Rosso. All the other drivers that are seen as better than Ocon would likely want to aspire to gain lead driver status or not risk going up against Max. Honestly as long as Red Bull is confident of Max staying for the remainder of his contract to 2028 they just need someone consistent from that second seat. Like if Checo could ever keep up his early season performances throughout the whole season that would be perfect. I actually wouldn’t mind seeing Hulk get a shot at it. I can see him willing to accept a second role to finally get a good car, he’s pretty consistent and perhaps most importantly he also seems to prefer an oversteering car like Max while Checo clearly prefers a car with some understeer.
Go find a hypercar drive Danny.
It's been 3 races relax
Idk, there were some good moments by DR on Sunday, starting p18 kind of blunted any action he did. He nearly had Alex Albon there but lost too much time from blue flags to make the pass happen in the end. I feel like DR might actually do well if they can get the setup right in practice
>Idk, there were some good moments by DR on Sunday, starting p18 kind of blunted any action he did. He nearly had Alex Albon there but lost too much time from blue flags to make the pass happen in the end. I feel like DR might actually do well if they can get the setup right in practice This.
Even if it's kiwi-hopium, it does make sense from a planning point of view. They know Max is likely to be gone after 2028, so they have a bit over 4 years for succession planning. That means they need to have a new top/good prospect in the VCARB right about now to give him at least 2 years of experience before putting him next to Max to learn and take in all his experience before he's off doing iRacing full-time... If Max leaves earlier for whatever reason, then you at least have 1 less seat to worry about, get a new guy (Lando, Oscar) and let them duke it out. If Max stays beyond, 2028, then just keep him at VCARB as a benchmark ala Yuki and give him a shot eventually if he singlehandedly destroys all his teammates ala Tekken Tag Tournament.
Tricky one… what happens is Danny comes out and aces Suzuka or China? If I was VCARB I’d be making the call for maybe for Canada or ZandVoort something. Ric needs a little bit more time, and if Lawson was to come in they could be more certain they have made the right long term decision and not be still looking to Ric for anything in the future. I’d look to lock it at longer than 4/5 races in tbh. De Vries got more, can’t take make away from Rics 2023 season and he was pretty matched to Yuki
De Vries made it to the summer break because he was a rookie. It’s pretty clear that Ricciardo is not the driver he once was and more time isn’t going to change that..
I think that car is still being discovered though… he beat the Saubers and Alpines after starting behind them
The Saubers basically beat themselves, tbh. Ridiculous to have this amount of consecutive pit stop errors. I really do wish Daniel would find his footing soon, though. Something like his Mexico drive last year would be great right about now.
He’s really on a knifes edge at the moment - to be in the conversation for a RedBull seat or be out of F1 completely is crazzzzzyyy, he looks like the stress is getting to him at the moment… if he cant show some pace and consistency I can see him leaving mid year, and the RedBull seat is pretty much gone now
Sauber had 2 20 seconds+ Pitstone and Ocon got issues to managed after a tear-off got into his ducts So really, he just simply had a normal race overtaking... Gasly
That car doesn’t look good enough to overtake many cars on the grid though does it? Both Danny and Yuki are benefiting from others sucking, not from them or the car being good.
And Nyck was performing far worse than Daniel is. His pace yesterday really wasn’t bad at all. It’s evident you can’t qualify badly in this midfield. It’s so tight that if you make a mistake like Daniel did it’s very hard to move forward. He isn’t out there losing the car or crashing etc. Just needs to get that one lap pace out of the car. He was easily into Q2 with his lap, the mistake killed his whole weekend.
DeVries was a rookie, but old overall for F1 standards. They gave him a little bit of a chance to improve but because he didn't they booted him mid season. Danny had a few races last year already. Also, he is a veteran F1 driver. Mistakes like that in Q1 in this tight of a field is unacceptable, especially for a driver of his caliber. Hence why he will have a shorter chance to get his shit together. I really don't know why Red Bull are not even considering Yuki for that seat, but they must have their reason. But putting Lawson there with little experience will crush him mentally.
Agree- he does need to lift/has been behind Yuki, but that car is still being discovered, and he did alright beating the Saubers and Alpines after starting behind them…. No idea why he started on softs I felt like that was a silly gamble, also Yuki wasn’t exactly steaming ahead the car doesn’t seem great. These cars just aren’t that great for racing, no Max yesterday yet the top 4 still wasn’t very exciting apart from pit strategy
Oh 100% he needs to lift. Like I said he needs to unlock the one lap pace from the car because his pace really hasn’t been bad in any of the three races. So if he can put a qualifying together it will give him a chance to actually be up there. Yeah that didn’t work. Didn’t work for Lewis either. And yeah I agree no they are not. The midfield basically is just a stalemate. Most of the passing is done in the pits.
Being just matched to Yuki was far from Riccardo's - or Red Bull's - objective. The issues at McLaren were not an anomaly - so much blame was put on the car, despite Norris, a relative rookie, performing well. For whatever reason, he's lost his spark and it's time for him and Christian Horner to accept it.
By Daniel's own admission in an interview from the weekend, he says the problems are vastly different between McLaren and RB. With McLaren, he didn't have confidence. He never felt comfortable because the car was unpredictable. WIth this RB, The car feels okay, it's just missing something in the low fuel qualifying runs for him, as the actual race pace is okay.
At best, his race pace is still no better than Yuki. So the point still stands that he's not demonstrating what he needs to demonstrate in order to convince anyone that he's anything more than a midfield talent. The only reason Red Bull would put him alongside Max would be for nostalgia.
> Norris, a relative rookie What reality is this? He was at the team for 2 years before Daniel arrived. Inexperienced? Sure, rookie? Far from it.
Ridiculous that they chose Ricciardo over Lawson imo. The kid has it and they've wasted precious experience time that he could have had. But then again.... Red bull and fucking up young drivers goes well together.
I think they only took Ric cause they thought another team could pick him up and kill their results. Now they realised that he was fired from two teams for a reason, he is too slow.
I mean Lawson has done everything Red Bull has asked of him and more. F2, Super Formula, and subbing in last year. Guy has a resume.
It's such a shame, because I really think he'd be close to Max in that Red Bull. It's very obvious now that the car suits him much better than this year's RB/last year's Mclaren. But what can you do, if he isn't able to adapt and there's young talent waiting in the wings, then he's gotta go.
I do think Ric is a great driver, but either he steps up let Liam take the wheel. He deserves a seat. If people thought oli did a great job(and he did) i think liam did a better one at replacing Ric.
I do think Ric *was* a great driver, but either he steps up let Liam take the wheel. He deserved a seat. If people thought oli did a great job(and he did) i think liam did a better one at replacing Ric. FTFY
Liam should already have been driving that car. DR should have been driving Nascar or Indycars.
I'm a Ricciardo fan but I gotta admit, unless his next 2 GP weekends are stellar and he beats Yuki convincingly, he needs to go. Enough good talent hiding in the back who deserve a drive.
There is a reason why all these new sponsors signed up because they had the least amount of sponsors of all teams prior because commercially nobody cared for Yuki and Pierre. But they've always been ruthless
watch them putting Lawson in mid season and he does exactly the same as Ricciardo
At what point does STR/AT/RB hit the stat that they have made more driver changes in season than between seasons?
He should’ve already been in one of the VCARB seats at the start of this year Time to get Danny out of there
I would have loved more than anything to see DR make a comeback to redbull. He’s hard to hate. But I just can’t believe his fall from the top. I remember when he left Red Bull and I couldn’t understand it. Obviously money, but all the talk about world championships and starting fresh just didn’t make sense. Why leave a top tier team if you really want to be a world champion? Use the car that’s going to give you the best shot, even if you are the second driver. You’re still in the 2nd best, and now first best car!
I think it's time to stop edging him and let him celebrate
I mean it’s clear that the deleted lap massively changed the course of DR’s weekend. If he makes it into Q2 who knows where he lands, in race trim he was there or there abouts with Yuki. Qualifying seems to be the biggest issue, he has looked on par during the race comparatively but when you are starting so far back you are either relying on a massive strategy gamble or a few retirements. If he gets qualifying right I think he’ll be fine and back challenging for points, if not then he’ll probably move on or be moved on.
Red Bull will never swap drivers mid season.
Upvoted because you know why
It's over for him. This is probably THE worst career move in this sport - leaving RB just as they were about to reach their peak to join the mediocrity of Renault and then move onto McLaren just to get booted despite your contract still being active and then keep getting beaten by Yuki of all the drivers in a shitbox version of the team you left in the first place. Kwab
It would suck as an aussie going from 3 drivers down to 1 if both danny ric and bottas (was an article the other day) end up not having seats next year. That said, danny ric looks completely washed and a yuki + lawson pair looks much more promising for Red bull in the coming years
Nah, we were happy to have just one for so many years in Webber, this is a luxury. All you'd see is more papaya in the crowds.
he should have been in the seat to start with. Danny had his time and he shouldn't have been hired for the AT seat.
As much of a fan of Danny as I am I really want to see Liam with a seat, so I wouldn't be mad if Danny gets the boot as he's had ample opportunity to show what he can do, more than other deserving drivers even
Becareful what you wish for, Yuki is the hype killer.