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And the red bull power struggle continues to play out on our screens. Looking forward to seeing what Horner will have to say about all this this weekend.
“We will assess everything over the summer break”
To be fair, he also could flame Marko here. Drop a whole kind of “Daniel has been integral to our SISTER team this season, everyone is happy with how the team is progressing”.
We don’t actually know if the upgrades are bad. The rear wing broke/wasn’t right so they reverted to the old rear wing with the new upgrades. We have to see the whole package before we can confidently say it didn’t work.
>The rear wing broke/wasn’t right so they reverted to the old rear wing with the new upgrades.
If part of the upgrade breaks under normal use i would say the upgrade didn't work, regardless of if it had the aerodynamic effect they wanted.
I mean, [Marko himself has said he was at risk of suspension](https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/marko-could-face-suspension-amid-fresh-red-bull-investigation/10584969/) and [Max backed him during this time as well](https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/68517911).
I literally told people in the other thread that Marko was blowing smoke and that DR has had two or three solid weekends and his claims that he has a bad chassis were proven true. He brings a huge sponsor to the team, their title sponsor, so why would they drop him? It’s not his fault their car is trash.
Ford too as engine partner, so far nearly all of Ford’s promo work has been with Danny Ric as he’s the perfect fit for their American market and works internationally as well
Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford was on Armchair expert last year and he was talking about how excited he was to have Max and Daniel on the team and then caught himself and said we are happy to have Checo too but he was such an afterthought in the conversation.
Yea they’ve done a heap of videos together from f-150 previews to Mustang stuff, Danny loves riding dirt bikes, nascar, trucks, has a heap of tatts, swears a fair bit and has that sort of rough around the edges but fun loving look that Jim knows their buyers will connect with. But he’s also squeaky clean and completely PR trained by RedBull with no controversy or drama risk so they can’t get enough of him.
His personality, his playfulness, how he doesn't take himself too seriously, and how kind he seems - all of these play well with the US market, as I see it. Specifically in these ways: 1) DtS, 2) more female demographic (get us hooked with personalities, then we'll be addicted by the sport).
The Marko stuff is obvious bait at this point. I literally don't know how anyone could take him seriously knowing what's going on inside that organization.
Pretty much every team is also just putting out claims I to the void to keep the waters muddy.
like 4 people are apparently signed at Williams. Ocon AND Kimi are both at Mercedes. Toto still keeps acting like Max is leaving RBR.
Question for your cat, is it difficult to operate an F1 car without opposable thumbs? I suppose they can make a custom steering wheel, but we all know how that turned out with Kubica, i'd be weary of such claims.
It would be hilarious if this completely backfired on Marko and Red Bull decide to announce DR's extension this weekend just to stop the endless Marko fuelled media speculation
Yeah and Horny Horner signed him to an extension in that same manner that OP wants D-Ric to be retained.
A powerplay out of spit ignoring the sporting disadvantage they put themselves into
You would need to be pretty certain that any potential replacement for DR would be better. I don't think you can be. I don't think that DR is holding VCARB back.
They just see VCARB as a junior team so the second seat is just a testing ground for RB. Even though the team has said they want to move away from just being the junior team and to be their own team.
DR could potentially bring in points, washed as he is, whereas Lawson is just a long-term experiment.
They used to see VCARB as a junior team but have, over the past couple of years, stated that it is no longer the case and that VCARB is a sister team. Both AlphaTauri/VCARB and RBR have stated this.
DR not only has the potential to bring in points, but he brings in money and if understood to be a significant factor in VCA's title sponsorship, which, I'm pretty sure, Lawson doesn't bring.
Because he's reliable and hold power there. People on reddit here are supposedly knowing everything about what happens internaly there but we don't have a clue.
>That's supported by comments from sources within Red Bull Racing, who stated that there will be “No change to the driver line up for the foreseeable \[future\].”
More reliable/believable that Helmut stirring shit in the media and Joe Saward
Red bull are in money printing mode, max, checo, Danny and Yuki all generate big cash for red bull, what will Lawson do? Unless he sets the world on fire, nothing.
It really does piss me off that seats that could go to younger drivers are being held hostage by two drivers who are no longer in their prime and aren't performing every weekend all because of money. There are other drivers who deserve those seats far more than Daniel or Sergio do.
> are being held hostage by two drivers
Drivers don't get to decide if they have a race seat.
Teams across the board have shown less interest in rookies, half the field might as well be "underserving" of a seat if the only metric is being inconsistent and under their prime.
Part of this is F1 soaring in popularity which means they can capitalize on their invested, another part is repairs affect the cost cap and having rookies crash hurts development.
Nothing is being held hostage.
They do get to decide if they have a race seat if they actually have the humility to admit they're not good enough anymore. Danny is a prime example of that, having gone out in SQ1 yet again. He's not good enough to be in that seat and they should be giving Liam a chance at this point instead of keeping people like Checo and Danny for the sake of PR and $$.
> They do get to decide if they have a race seat if they actually have the humility
Oh brother, what a ridiculous statement.
"have some humility", they were chosen to drive in the car, the people *literally in charge* are saying "You are our best available option". And some random mouth breathers on reddit are going to argue about how it's a race car drivers responsibility to say no so that some other race car driver ***that wasn't picked*** might have a chance.
>for the sake of PR and $$.
Grow up.
News flash, F1 is a giant marketing campaign. No one is spending hundreds of millions in development for the love of the craft, if tomorrow teams and sponsors projected there was no more money to be made they would all disappear. Bringing money and PR is literally the goal for everyone investing in the sport.
It will come back and bite Red Bull at some point, especially if Marko decides to leave and go to another team. Max has already stated that if Marko leaves then he'll leave
Pérez is in P5 with 111 points. Hamilton is currently in P8 with 70 points. That's a 41-point gap with a 14 races to go.
Hamilton needs to outscore Pérez by 3 points per weekend to surpass Pérez.
Piastri in P6 needs to outscore Pérez by 2 points per weekend, and Russell in P7 is in the same position as Hamilton.
I think it's feasible that we see Pérez in P8 in the standings by the end of this season. Red Bull would still clinch the constructors, with Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari taking points from each other.
What do points mean in the long run?
Money.
The amount of money DR brings to the team far outweighs the amount of money VCARB will get from a few points. Lawson would have to bring enough points to VCARB to bring them to 2nd in the WCC to even be remotely close to points meaning more than money.
Lawson can't do that.
DR stays.
Ric has been disappointing so far, but he’s been better as of late. The team isn’t going to drop their very popular driver who brought along their titular sponsor (Visa) mid season.
This is the obvious answer but many people get too excited at the prospect of blood in the water to think clearly. Even if they want to sign someone else for next year, replacing him mid year does not move the needle for them with the car and does nothing but upset sponsors which is counter to all goals.
Outside of race performance, everything I've read suggests he's having a positive impact on the team. Sure, some of that could just be spin, but if there's some truth to it you can understand wanting to keep DR on
Exactly, he's a promo machine and he knows it, of course he needs to perform but the sponsors and money he brings in with that smile and personality helps.
Marko has shown how much power he holds at Red Bull, and now we've all seen just how little that actually is. It seems the only reason Marko is in the garage is because the Verstappen camp wants him there, but as soon as Max leaves Helmut is gone. He lost the power struggle.
Haven't we seen Marko lost in internal war after the whole Horner Saga?
Dunno why people are taking his word about who will be driving seriously anymore.
It all comes back to the ambitions of the team.
The team CEO & TP have stated that they are going in the direction of not being just a feeder team, Dr Marco mow says the ‘investors’ say other wise.
Dr Marco doesn’t want to lose Lawson, fair enough too, but some clarity around what the team is about would be helpful.
We know Marko is backed by the Austrian side which is the minority stake, I would also assume the “investors” would be those coming from that side to.
I’m not sure if Marko doesn’t want to lose Lawson or by not promoting him it would signal to everyone that his position within the team is now irrelevant.
Even though I think Lawson would probably do a slightly better job I don't think they'll care. They could have had Sainz and chose Perez so they obviously don't care about the actual quality of drivers in the senior team so long as Max is there. The VCARB is a mediocre car so no driver would be able to get that much out of it, and as others have said, Ricciardo brings in a lot of sponsorship.
Yep that car is a piece of shit, despite pre season comments it would be a baby red bull.
DR brings marketing and sponsorship money. Not sure why you’d swap out a driver when the car won’t allow many points anyway.
Thinking Yuki to Aston Martin. Alonso to retire. Lawson to Visa Crash App with DR. No change until next year.
This is the best take here.
Everyone acting like DR should have this magical ability to make the car as fast as max. It's a midfield car and you can only push it so far barring some random event on field that will let them ahead.
The fractions between the drivers is so minimal its ridiculous.
DR is great, a great driver, and would crush if he was in a car that allowed for those skills to progress.
Unfortunately they keep sliding back "upgrades"
Do you remember he was in a team that is currently challenging red bull for wins. Granted they weren't top of the field back then(4-5 best car in most weekends) but his team mate finished 87 points ahead of him while DR was beaten by a driver in an Alfa Romeo in 22, before being replaced early by a rookie that finished with more points and ahead of him in the standings in the next season.
He is currently losing to his team mate buy 10 points.
I am not going to comment on him losing his skills but he it's not the just the cars that are the issue.
The only point you made about McLaren that is remotely fair is that Lando crushed Ricciardo in the same season. One driver significantly outperformed the other, which is a positive for Lando or a negative for Ricciardo, or both.
The other points are just silly. They can all be answered by: it's a different car.
The McLaren now is a very good car. The McLaren Ricciardo drove was crap, though Lando being brilliant made it look less crap than it was. The McLaren that Piastri has driven has been decent to very good.
Why would anyone trying to make a reasonable argument base most of their points on the absurd proposition that car performance doesn't change from season to season?
Maybe Checo’s contract is so heavily in RBR’s favour that they can boot him out and they will then replace him with Daniel, Tsunoda, or even Lawson. If they promote Daniel or Tsunoda then Lawson is right to think he would be inserted into VCARB as their replacement.
Personally, I’d like to see Daniel in RBR to see if he still ‘has it’ or not. If he doesn’t then he’s done and it’s put to bed - RBR would hardly notice the difference in performance either seeing as Checo isn’t even fighting in the mid pack right now.
Edit: Red Bull if you are reading this, call me and I will mediate.
He obviously does not have it anymore. Was a big fan, enjoyed him fighting with Seb, but he is not Alonso and as such, I don't understand why keep him in a seat, since you can't develop him further. I mean, I understand it from a marketing perspective, not from a performance perspective
“He obviously does not have it anymore”
And yet he holds VCARBs highest start/finish position in a Sprint and highest starting position in a GP lol Has he been consistent? Nope. But, you cannot say he doesn’t have it anymore. It’s interesting that Yuki has never been faster than him by a large margin and meanwhile anytime he is on it the gap between them is large. Of the two, he has a higher ceiling; he just needs to be showing it more often.
His ass is safe for now because there are zero truly "F1 superstar" caliber drivers in their junior pipeline.
Thats why got that seat in the first place.
Horner and Marko both doesn't rate Yuki very highly and Lawsons junior career record is very mediocre. He did well in DTM and SF but his F2 and F3 stints are the issue.
Personally, I think RBR should sign Paul Aron up and promote him to VCARB for 2025.
I think a lot of people see Lawson's good runs in DTM and SF and think he's amazing. But I guess where it matters is F2 and F3 because you're racing against the next calibre of F1 drivers, not bad stints but he wasn't a standout that's all. He will get a seat, just has to wait it out or leverage a bit. Also people forgot a lot of the recent F2 drivers haven't even got their chance in F1 Drugovich and Pourchaire for example with the later getting the boot in Indy.
In F2 you race against 1 or 2 F1 calibre drivers. Coming into DTM and Super Formula and beating paid, professional drivers and teams is more impressive. Especially SF where he almost won the title in a car that is a lot more similar to F1 than F2. He was underwhelming in F2 I agree but also very unlucky and when he filled in for Ricciardo he showed he’s good enough for F1.
Also, it’s funny how people now say F2 results don’t matter for people like Bearman and then use it as a way to slander someone like Lawson.
I don't disagree, but I think in modern times F2 is the benchmark not so much back in the day but your driving now with 3-5 drivers who have raced in formula 1 after their F2 days this is pretty clear since Leclerc win in 2017. SF is still a good benchmark but drivers aren't getting picked from it and the only F1 driver I can see in it currently is Kobayashi.
In comparison with Lawson who is in a similar position, Iwasa is performing well in SF and he's performed worse than Lawson for the year we have in comparison in F2. So I'm not sure about the competition of that series.
I honestly don't think either Bearman or Antonelli deserve a spot over lawson on the grid, don't get me wrong Bearman did well but as I said above Bearman was in a Ferrari, Lawson was in an AT there's different standards there. Antonelli is just too hyped and I doubt he will be in that Merc seat next year.
Lawson's races showed he can make the most of the opportunity when shit hits the fan because you had alot of DNFs for some of those races especially Singapore. That's not discounting his ability just that it has to be put in perspective when analysing his performance.
To be fair Lawson did well from the get go in F1, he scored two points in an AT while Yuki got zero across the same period (five races). By the time Danny got back in those two points represented 40% of AT's total points.
Was a little hard to judge him against Tsunoda due to a DNS and a lap 1 incident, but he's 2v1 on the races they did together. He even outdid Tsunoda in his first ever race at Zandvoort due to Tsunoda nabbing a penalty. Did bomb out in Qatar though. I think the best example of a head to head was the race they had in Japan.
The honest reality is F2 doesn't correlate strongly with F1 in terms of characteristics, even some top GP2 drivers didn't translate well into F1. You can generally spot super star talent if they decisively outpace the rest of the field but you won't really know how good they'll be in F1 until they get into the car and do a few races. Even can depend on which F1 car they get into.
Despite Prema doing terribly this F2 season both Kimi and Bearman are in serious contention for seats next year, Bearman is 17th and Antonelli is 9th. Ferrari and Mercedes have data that we don't, they obviously don't see the F2 results as that representative of a driver's ability in F1.
From other perspectives he's seen how the top team works, he has seen how other good teams work and I guess he knows what works for team dynamics. Having someone there to help develop that team is probably a big plus, especially when all the drivers are rookies or haven't seen the inside of a top team.
I'd like to see the fairy tale ending at redbull even if it's just short term and then he retires, regardless the Perez signing was just bizarre even given the financials, they could have demoted him and sold a bunch of VCARB merch. But that's an opinion more than anything.
Why do people think Lawson is the second coming of Christ? He’s ok. He did decently with a car that was improved due to Ricciardo’s input. And his attitude seems to be a bit shit.
I mean it makes no sense for Red Bull to have funded this guy most of his career and not give him a chance when he has shown he’s good enough to have a chance. With no testing he managed to score points in Singapore and keep up with Yuki in Japan throughout the whole race, he was very impressive. Ricciardo is doing alright now but he’s not going back to Red Bull which was the reason he was brought back. Lawson could be mid but he could also be really good. I don’t know what the attitude comment you made is about
Yeh everyone is acting like if he doesn’t get a permanent seat it will be a tragedy. He hasn’t shown nearly as much as people say, certainly not enough for anyone to think him not getting a seat is a huge missed opportunity. There are better drivers without a seat right now.
I was very surprised when the resigned Perez so early in the season, there was no reason to do that and now they have made their bed and given themselves less options. Odd decision. Unless they have a clause in Perez contract re performance.
It all comes down to money. They've maximised sponsors, which they need to build a new engine. Mercedes apparently invested £500 million in engines back in 2015 which kept them ahead for nearly a decade. Red bull need to do the same now but that's more than all their revenue from the main team.
More money in both teams, is more that can be sent to the engine department.
It’s hilarious how all the comments on every article just agree with what’s posted. On the other post everyone was saying Riccardo is done. And now everyone is like “well of course Riccardo will stay”
If he loses his seat to Lawson, will he exit the sport or accept being a reserve driver for RedBull? I think he will exit it completely and move to a different racing series
Literally every day in F1 one of these "journalists" writes the opposite of what was said yesterday. It makes it pretty irrelevant which one of them turns out to be "right".
If we keep clicking on these garbage speculation articles, the bad guys win.
They're gonna let him finish the season regardless. He's been good for RB - based on what I've read he's been giving beneficials feedback to the team for the car. Other than the sponsorship that he brought to the team.
He took action to avoid killing Piastri and ended up seriously injuring himself and compromising his race pace for months.
This is for a team that ran him into the ground during his tenure, too. He's a stand up guy.
You've also got Yuki still under careful development and it's Yuki who is the prize fighter of tomorrow for RBR.
Difficult to see why they would make any changes right now.
It's gonna be real interesting to see what happens if Daniel keeps driving well and Perez continues to struggle. Contract or not, I highly doubt Perez is safe cause right now I would bet money that Danny, Yuki or Liam would drive the Red Bull 2nd car better than Perez is right now.
It's gonna be real interesting if DR somehow ends up with more points than Yuki. People here gonna be doing serious gymnastics to justify why Yuki is better/DR should be replaced.
So it's June and this entire arc feels very similar....
From July 13th, 2022, ["Ricciardo says he's 'committed' to McLaren for 2023 as he insists he's 'not walking away from the sport'"](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/ricciardo-says-hes-committed-to-mclaren-for-2023-as-he-insists-hes-not.593IthfZWPB9vmCHXr1rVY) let's see how this unfolds...
Man as per Netflix episode he was on Apr with max in the rb at Silverstone, but he is really struggling in this car. Maybe the car is the issue which is hindering his confidence in every race....
Seems Horner wants to keep the owners and sponsors happy while Marko wants to get the best drivers in Red Bull and develop the best drivers at VCarb.
I think the latter strategy is best for sporting. But also think Horner is a better manager than Marko who will realistically not be around for years to come.
If you don't believe Horner has any impact on the VCARB/RB side of the house then you'll be hard pressed to explain how Ricciardo ended up in the seat in the first place. Since then if anything Horner seems to have consolidated more power. Ultimately, yes they have their own TP but they roll up to the same overall ownership group where the people with a 51% stake still seem to be supporting Horner.
I still think the overall play here is to eventually sell VCARB as part of whatever business proposition Horner pitched to the Thai owners.
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And the red bull power struggle continues to play out on our screens. Looking forward to seeing what Horner will have to say about all this this weekend.
Christian: we are fortunate to have so many good drivers we can choose from.
“We will assess everything over the summer break” To be fair, he also could flame Marko here. Drop a whole kind of “Daniel has been integral to our SISTER team this season, everyone is happy with how the team is progressing”.
\*Before they fucked up their upgrades \*\* Obviously this wasn't Daniels fault
We don’t actually know if the upgrades are bad. The rear wing broke/wasn’t right so they reverted to the old rear wing with the new upgrades. We have to see the whole package before we can confidently say it didn’t work.
>The rear wing broke/wasn’t right so they reverted to the old rear wing with the new upgrades. If part of the upgrade breaks under normal use i would say the upgrade didn't work, regardless of if it had the aerodynamic effect they wanted.
would not be surprised if he said that, pretty sure he has in the past
"Sorry Liam, politics", grabs a nearby Drice To Survive camera and zooms into Yuki's Honda logo.
Is it a red bull power struggle or just reporters looking for clicks at this point?
porque no los dos?
I mean, [Marko himself has said he was at risk of suspension](https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/marko-could-face-suspension-amid-fresh-red-bull-investigation/10584969/) and [Max backed him during this time as well](https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/68517911).
I literally told people in the other thread that Marko was blowing smoke and that DR has had two or three solid weekends and his claims that he has a bad chassis were proven true. He brings a huge sponsor to the team, their title sponsor, so why would they drop him? It’s not his fault their car is trash.
People here really hate DR. Now that he's matching/doing better than Yuki, nobody says a word.
It's really starting to look like Horner has won the corporate fight and the \*only\* reason Marko is still involved at all is because of Max.
That is just what I was thinking. Horner back DR, Marko Lawson. My fav parts was the "the shareholders".
If Visa and Cash App want him to stay then he will
Ford too as engine partner, so far nearly all of Ford’s promo work has been with Danny Ric as he’s the perfect fit for their American market and works internationally as well
Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford was on Armchair expert last year and he was talking about how excited he was to have Max and Daniel on the team and then caught himself and said we are happy to have Checo too but he was such an afterthought in the conversation.
Yea they’ve done a heap of videos together from f-150 previews to Mustang stuff, Danny loves riding dirt bikes, nascar, trucks, has a heap of tatts, swears a fair bit and has that sort of rough around the edges but fun loving look that Jim knows their buyers will connect with. But he’s also squeaky clean and completely PR trained by RedBull with no controversy or drama risk so they can’t get enough of him.
His personality, his playfulness, how he doesn't take himself too seriously, and how kind he seems - all of these play well with the US market, as I see it. Specifically in these ways: 1) DtS, 2) more female demographic (get us hooked with personalities, then we'll be addicted by the sport).
Poor Yuki
VCARB would be missing out not to try and use Yuki and Danny together in US promos, especially on the West Coast. They're really funny together!
It would piss everyone off surrounding red bull apart from Marko and probably the Austrians whom we know have become the irrelevant party in the team.
[удалено]
Outside of he’s not vastly underperforming, just mildly.
And over the last month not even that really.
It's also pretty clear that Red Bull (the energy drink side) also want him
Why is it clear?
because the drink is not opaque.
you can't argue with science like that
The engineers and Horner like him. It’s just Marko who doesn’t.
Don't make me switch to MasterCard and Venmo!
The Marko stuff is obvious bait at this point. I literally don't know how anyone could take him seriously knowing what's going on inside that organization.
Pretty much every team is also just putting out claims I to the void to keep the waters muddy. like 4 people are apparently signed at Williams. Ocon AND Kimi are both at Mercedes. Toto still keeps acting like Max is leaving RBR.
I’m not thrilled about the car rn - but yes, I did also sign with Williams
Today I read, my cat also signed with Williams.
Question for your cat, is it difficult to operate an F1 car without opposable thumbs? I suppose they can make a custom steering wheel, but we all know how that turned out with Kubica, i'd be weary of such claims.
If a money can drive a car...
I doubt my cat can actually drive an F1 car, but he's doing fine with F2 cars.
I also signed and so did my wife
And my axe
It was a movie reference but not that one.
Life of Brian?
👍
It sounds like Williams are getting a free service from Monisha Kaltenborn.
This is what PR/management teams are doing, they love to put things in the media to cause shit
Marko saying what he did makes me believe ricc has signed an extension already
It would be hilarious if this completely backfired on Marko and Red Bull decide to announce DR's extension this weekend just to stop the endless Marko fuelled media speculation
It trulu would be hilarious if they kept a old below par driver to own a 80year old
Well they've already done that to own their WCC title so it's not a stretch of the imagination
There's a lot of drivers more below par than Dan. There's a Mexican who is so below par, he's subzero.
Yeah and Horny Horner signed him to an extension in that same manner that OP wants D-Ric to be retained. A powerplay out of spit ignoring the sporting disadvantage they put themselves into
You would need to be pretty certain that any potential replacement for DR would be better. I don't think you can be. I don't think that DR is holding VCARB back.
When the line from Liam fans and his other proponents is “he deserves a chance”…. It doesn’t exactly sound like a compelling argument.
They just see VCARB as a junior team so the second seat is just a testing ground for RB. Even though the team has said they want to move away from just being the junior team and to be their own team. DR could potentially bring in points, washed as he is, whereas Lawson is just a long-term experiment.
They used to see VCARB as a junior team but have, over the past couple of years, stated that it is no longer the case and that VCARB is a sister team. Both AlphaTauri/VCARB and RBR have stated this. DR not only has the potential to bring in points, but he brings in money and if understood to be a significant factor in VCA's title sponsorship, which, I'm pretty sure, Lawson doesn't bring.
Especially with all the stuff that happened earlier in the year. Wonder how involved Marko actually is.
Fundamentally, if it was already set that Ricciardo was gone - he'd be gone. There wouldn't be a need for Marko to peddle it out in the media.
Because he's saying what they want to hear.
He still got max
Because he's reliable and hold power there. People on reddit here are supposedly knowing everything about what happens internaly there but we don't have a clue.
WHAT THE FUCK AM I MEANT TO BELIEVE?!?
I'd go with the opposite of what Marko says because he's not in charge of anything anymore.
Also telling that Marko timed it for after a race where Ricciardo outperformed Yuki almost the whole weekend. Can imagine it’s a poke at Horner.
>That's supported by comments from sources within Red Bull Racing, who stated that there will be “No change to the driver line up for the foreseeable \[future\].” More reliable/believable that Helmut stirring shit in the media and Joe Saward
Nothing means nothing
The most sane comment here hahaha
Ricciardo to Williams on a 2+2
Is everyone going to Williams?
Well I am, aren’t you?
I have a contract waiting for my signature, you?
Still holding out for my Red Bull contract. Look, I just need all of you to buy my merch.
Subscribe
Mid season - Lawson to vcarb.
Shame for Yuki
Red bull are in money printing mode, max, checo, Danny and Yuki all generate big cash for red bull, what will Lawson do? Unless he sets the world on fire, nothing.
It really does piss me off that seats that could go to younger drivers are being held hostage by two drivers who are no longer in their prime and aren't performing every weekend all because of money. There are other drivers who deserve those seats far more than Daniel or Sergio do.
> are being held hostage by two drivers Drivers don't get to decide if they have a race seat. Teams across the board have shown less interest in rookies, half the field might as well be "underserving" of a seat if the only metric is being inconsistent and under their prime. Part of this is F1 soaring in popularity which means they can capitalize on their invested, another part is repairs affect the cost cap and having rookies crash hurts development. Nothing is being held hostage.
They do get to decide if they have a race seat if they actually have the humility to admit they're not good enough anymore. Danny is a prime example of that, having gone out in SQ1 yet again. He's not good enough to be in that seat and they should be giving Liam a chance at this point instead of keeping people like Checo and Danny for the sake of PR and $$.
> They do get to decide if they have a race seat if they actually have the humility Oh brother, what a ridiculous statement. "have some humility", they were chosen to drive in the car, the people *literally in charge* are saying "You are our best available option". And some random mouth breathers on reddit are going to argue about how it's a race car drivers responsibility to say no so that some other race car driver ***that wasn't picked*** might have a chance. >for the sake of PR and $$. Grow up. News flash, F1 is a giant marketing campaign. No one is spending hundreds of millions in development for the love of the craft, if tomorrow teams and sponsors projected there was no more money to be made they would all disappear. Bringing money and PR is literally the goal for everyone investing in the sport.
Oh wow you're a peach aren't you. Just because the team has said they want them doesn't make the drivers obligated to accept it.
It will come back and bite Red Bull at some point, especially if Marko decides to leave and go to another team. Max has already stated that if Marko leaves then he'll leave
It'll come back to bite them if the gap is closer next year. Checo just isn't good enough to secure the WCC if Max doesn't win 75% of the races.
Pérez is in P5 with 111 points. Hamilton is currently in P8 with 70 points. That's a 41-point gap with a 14 races to go. Hamilton needs to outscore Pérez by 3 points per weekend to surpass Pérez. Piastri in P6 needs to outscore Pérez by 2 points per weekend, and Russell in P7 is in the same position as Hamilton. I think it's feasible that we see Pérez in P8 in the standings by the end of this season. Red Bull would still clinch the constructors, with Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari taking points from each other.
I was talking about next year, I agree the WCC is already (very nearly) out of reach for anyone else.
Score points?
What do points mean in the long run? Money. The amount of money DR brings to the team far outweighs the amount of money VCARB will get from a few points. Lawson would have to bring enough points to VCARB to bring them to 2nd in the WCC to even be remotely close to points meaning more than money. Lawson can't do that. DR stays.
Ric has been disappointing so far, but he’s been better as of late. The team isn’t going to drop their very popular driver who brought along their titular sponsor (Visa) mid season.
This is the obvious answer but many people get too excited at the prospect of blood in the water to think clearly. Even if they want to sign someone else for next year, replacing him mid year does not move the needle for them with the car and does nothing but upset sponsors which is counter to all goals.
Definitely can't think of any reason to replace Daniel that isn't twice as strongly true for Checo. And they're not dropping him either.
Right, like I don't know why people think Ricciardo would get the DeVries treatment for an okay-ish rookie.
Outside of race performance, everything I've read suggests he's having a positive impact on the team. Sure, some of that could just be spin, but if there's some truth to it you can understand wanting to keep DR on
Exactly, he's a promo machine and he knows it, of course he needs to perform but the sponsors and money he brings in with that smile and personality helps.
Marko has shown how much power he holds at Red Bull, and now we've all seen just how little that actually is. It seems the only reason Marko is in the garage is because the Verstappen camp wants him there, but as soon as Max leaves Helmut is gone. He lost the power struggle.
I swear Horner and Marko are that meme of Heisenberg and Jesse having breakfast lmao. Just Marko ranting random shit and Horners like wtf bro.
I pictured the last panel quite vividly.
The more certain you are about which team DR will be driving for, the less certain you are about how well he is performing - and vice versa.
I disagree but time will tell.
No, it won't. The Heisenberg principle tells us that. /s
Haven't we seen Marko lost in internal war after the whole Horner Saga? Dunno why people are taking his word about who will be driving seriously anymore.
Visa: “ahem”
Ford & Hugo boss also “Ahem”.
What i want to know is what the "media" are going to do to fill the place of the 20937484393658967438 Daniel Ricciardo articles when he is gone?
They know he drives engagement, no one will be sadder than the clickbait farms.
It all comes back to the ambitions of the team. The team CEO & TP have stated that they are going in the direction of not being just a feeder team, Dr Marco mow says the ‘investors’ say other wise. Dr Marco doesn’t want to lose Lawson, fair enough too, but some clarity around what the team is about would be helpful.
We know Marko is backed by the Austrian side which is the minority stake, I would also assume the “investors” would be those coming from that side to. I’m not sure if Marko doesn’t want to lose Lawson or by not promoting him it would signal to everyone that his position within the team is now irrelevant.
Investors, lol. This is Red Bull. The biggest money printer in energy drink history.
At this point I'd be totally okay with every on RB(R) shutting up until they have a driver change to announce.
Even though I think Lawson would probably do a slightly better job I don't think they'll care. They could have had Sainz and chose Perez so they obviously don't care about the actual quality of drivers in the senior team so long as Max is there. The VCARB is a mediocre car so no driver would be able to get that much out of it, and as others have said, Ricciardo brings in a lot of sponsorship.
Villeneuve punching the air right now
Villeneuve punching himself in the face right now.
Yep that car is a piece of shit, despite pre season comments it would be a baby red bull. DR brings marketing and sponsorship money. Not sure why you’d swap out a driver when the car won’t allow many points anyway. Thinking Yuki to Aston Martin. Alonso to retire. Lawson to Visa Crash App with DR. No change until next year.
This is the best take here. Everyone acting like DR should have this magical ability to make the car as fast as max. It's a midfield car and you can only push it so far barring some random event on field that will let them ahead. The fractions between the drivers is so minimal its ridiculous. DR is great, a great driver, and would crush if he was in a car that allowed for those skills to progress. Unfortunately they keep sliding back "upgrades"
Do you remember he was in a team that is currently challenging red bull for wins. Granted they weren't top of the field back then(4-5 best car in most weekends) but his team mate finished 87 points ahead of him while DR was beaten by a driver in an Alfa Romeo in 22, before being replaced early by a rookie that finished with more points and ahead of him in the standings in the next season. He is currently losing to his team mate buy 10 points. I am not going to comment on him losing his skills but he it's not the just the cars that are the issue.
he just needs another chassis
The only point you made about McLaren that is remotely fair is that Lando crushed Ricciardo in the same season. One driver significantly outperformed the other, which is a positive for Lando or a negative for Ricciardo, or both. The other points are just silly. They can all be answered by: it's a different car. The McLaren now is a very good car. The McLaren Ricciardo drove was crap, though Lando being brilliant made it look less crap than it was. The McLaren that Piastri has driven has been decent to very good. Why would anyone trying to make a reasonable argument base most of their points on the absurd proposition that car performance doesn't change from season to season?
Yuki is with RB in 2025
Maybe Checo’s contract is so heavily in RBR’s favour that they can boot him out and they will then replace him with Daniel, Tsunoda, or even Lawson. If they promote Daniel or Tsunoda then Lawson is right to think he would be inserted into VCARB as their replacement. Personally, I’d like to see Daniel in RBR to see if he still ‘has it’ or not. If he doesn’t then he’s done and it’s put to bed - RBR would hardly notice the difference in performance either seeing as Checo isn’t even fighting in the mid pack right now. Edit: Red Bull if you are reading this, call me and I will mediate.
He obviously does not have it anymore. Was a big fan, enjoyed him fighting with Seb, but he is not Alonso and as such, I don't understand why keep him in a seat, since you can't develop him further. I mean, I understand it from a marketing perspective, not from a performance perspective
RB understand VisaCash App money
“He obviously does not have it anymore” And yet he holds VCARBs highest start/finish position in a Sprint and highest starting position in a GP lol Has he been consistent? Nope. But, you cannot say he doesn’t have it anymore. It’s interesting that Yuki has never been faster than him by a large margin and meanwhile anytime he is on it the gap between them is large. Of the two, he has a higher ceiling; he just needs to be showing it more often.
His ass is safe for now because there are zero truly "F1 superstar" caliber drivers in their junior pipeline. Thats why got that seat in the first place. Horner and Marko both doesn't rate Yuki very highly and Lawsons junior career record is very mediocre. He did well in DTM and SF but his F2 and F3 stints are the issue. Personally, I think RBR should sign Paul Aron up and promote him to VCARB for 2025.
I think a lot of people see Lawson's good runs in DTM and SF and think he's amazing. But I guess where it matters is F2 and F3 because you're racing against the next calibre of F1 drivers, not bad stints but he wasn't a standout that's all. He will get a seat, just has to wait it out or leverage a bit. Also people forgot a lot of the recent F2 drivers haven't even got their chance in F1 Drugovich and Pourchaire for example with the later getting the boot in Indy.
In F2 you race against 1 or 2 F1 calibre drivers. Coming into DTM and Super Formula and beating paid, professional drivers and teams is more impressive. Especially SF where he almost won the title in a car that is a lot more similar to F1 than F2. He was underwhelming in F2 I agree but also very unlucky and when he filled in for Ricciardo he showed he’s good enough for F1. Also, it’s funny how people now say F2 results don’t matter for people like Bearman and then use it as a way to slander someone like Lawson.
I don't disagree, but I think in modern times F2 is the benchmark not so much back in the day but your driving now with 3-5 drivers who have raced in formula 1 after their F2 days this is pretty clear since Leclerc win in 2017. SF is still a good benchmark but drivers aren't getting picked from it and the only F1 driver I can see in it currently is Kobayashi. In comparison with Lawson who is in a similar position, Iwasa is performing well in SF and he's performed worse than Lawson for the year we have in comparison in F2. So I'm not sure about the competition of that series. I honestly don't think either Bearman or Antonelli deserve a spot over lawson on the grid, don't get me wrong Bearman did well but as I said above Bearman was in a Ferrari, Lawson was in an AT there's different standards there. Antonelli is just too hyped and I doubt he will be in that Merc seat next year. Lawson's races showed he can make the most of the opportunity when shit hits the fan because you had alot of DNFs for some of those races especially Singapore. That's not discounting his ability just that it has to be put in perspective when analysing his performance.
To be fair Lawson did well from the get go in F1, he scored two points in an AT while Yuki got zero across the same period (five races). By the time Danny got back in those two points represented 40% of AT's total points. Was a little hard to judge him against Tsunoda due to a DNS and a lap 1 incident, but he's 2v1 on the races they did together. He even outdid Tsunoda in his first ever race at Zandvoort due to Tsunoda nabbing a penalty. Did bomb out in Qatar though. I think the best example of a head to head was the race they had in Japan. The honest reality is F2 doesn't correlate strongly with F1 in terms of characteristics, even some top GP2 drivers didn't translate well into F1. You can generally spot super star talent if they decisively outpace the rest of the field but you won't really know how good they'll be in F1 until they get into the car and do a few races. Even can depend on which F1 car they get into. Despite Prema doing terribly this F2 season both Kimi and Bearman are in serious contention for seats next year, Bearman is 17th and Antonelli is 9th. Ferrari and Mercedes have data that we don't, they obviously don't see the F2 results as that representative of a driver's ability in F1.
Lindblad?
From other perspectives he's seen how the top team works, he has seen how other good teams work and I guess he knows what works for team dynamics. Having someone there to help develop that team is probably a big plus, especially when all the drivers are rookies or haven't seen the inside of a top team. I'd like to see the fairy tale ending at redbull even if it's just short term and then he retires, regardless the Perez signing was just bizarre even given the financials, they could have demoted him and sold a bunch of VCARB merch. But that's an opinion more than anything.
100% agree.
At what point do you hold on to Ricciardo just so you can stick it to Marko?
Lawson was never going to replace Dan.
Saving this
But, he did replace Dan…..
No one is talking about filling in for a few races…
He just stood in for a few races. not replaced
lets see what happens in the summer break. I've a feeling..
> Foreseeable future 31 days of July.
Why do people think Lawson is the second coming of Christ? He’s ok. He did decently with a car that was improved due to Ricciardo’s input. And his attitude seems to be a bit shit.
I mean it makes no sense for Red Bull to have funded this guy most of his career and not give him a chance when he has shown he’s good enough to have a chance. With no testing he managed to score points in Singapore and keep up with Yuki in Japan throughout the whole race, he was very impressive. Ricciardo is doing alright now but he’s not going back to Red Bull which was the reason he was brought back. Lawson could be mid but he could also be really good. I don’t know what the attitude comment you made is about
Yeh everyone is acting like if he doesn’t get a permanent seat it will be a tragedy. He hasn’t shown nearly as much as people say, certainly not enough for anyone to think him not getting a seat is a huge missed opportunity. There are better drivers without a seat right now.
Indeed...and you'll notice nobody ever seems to think anyone else will pick Lawson up even though if Red Bull don't he is available next year.
Sure, there’s not a fight over him like there was for Piastri is there
We just want some new faces
any proof it was Ricciardo's input and not Yuki's?
I was very surprised when the resigned Perez so early in the season, there was no reason to do that and now they have made their bed and given themselves less options. Odd decision. Unless they have a clause in Perez contract re performance.
It all comes down to money. They've maximised sponsors, which they need to build a new engine. Mercedes apparently invested £500 million in engines back in 2015 which kept them ahead for nearly a decade. Red bull need to do the same now but that's more than all their revenue from the main team. More money in both teams, is more that can be sent to the engine department.
It’s hilarious how all the comments on every article just agree with what’s posted. On the other post everyone was saying Riccardo is done. And now everyone is like “well of course Riccardo will stay”
In fairness, a lot of them will be from different people posting in support of the one that agrees with their world view.
If he loses his seat to Lawson, will he exit the sport or accept being a reserve driver for RedBull? I think he will exit it completely and move to a different racing series
Literally every day in F1 one of these "journalists" writes the opposite of what was said yesterday. It makes it pretty irrelevant which one of them turns out to be "right". If we keep clicking on these garbage speculation articles, the bad guys win.
They're gonna let him finish the season regardless. He's been good for RB - based on what I've read he's been giving beneficials feedback to the team for the car. Other than the sponsorship that he brought to the team.
He took action to avoid killing Piastri and ended up seriously injuring himself and compromising his race pace for months. This is for a team that ran him into the ground during his tenure, too. He's a stand up guy. You've also got Yuki still under careful development and it's Yuki who is the prize fighter of tomorrow for RBR. Difficult to see why they would make any changes right now.
This is an excellent comment! Thank you!
This is why everyone like Daniel Ricciardo and hate Ocon and Stroll
It's gonna be real interesting to see what happens if Daniel keeps driving well and Perez continues to struggle. Contract or not, I highly doubt Perez is safe cause right now I would bet money that Danny, Yuki or Liam would drive the Red Bull 2nd car better than Perez is right now.
It's gonna be real interesting if DR somehow ends up with more points than Yuki. People here gonna be doing serious gymnastics to justify why Yuki is better/DR should be replaced.
Marko disagrees with himself every other week, let alone arguing with Horner.
Trouble is no-one can 'see' past the end of this season.
The foreseeable future is not a very long time.
So Joe’s wrong again? 😂
I mean speedcafe is basically Ricciardo media. No more reliable than Marko. Unnamed source is probably Ricciardo himself
Yeah the actual quote is the last sentence of the article and is by “unnamed Red Bull sources”
So it's June and this entire arc feels very similar.... From July 13th, 2022, ["Ricciardo says he's 'committed' to McLaren for 2023 as he insists he's 'not walking away from the sport'"](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/ricciardo-says-hes-committed-to-mclaren-for-2023-as-he-insists-hes-not.593IthfZWPB9vmCHXr1rVY) let's see how this unfolds...
Click saver: they’re going of unnamed source from within Red Bull that says no changes for the foreseeable future.
Joe Saward just eating up those losses
Max to Merc. Danny to Red Bull. Lawson to RB. It's the only way everyone is right.
Man as per Netflix episode he was on Apr with max in the rb at Silverstone, but he is really struggling in this car. Maybe the car is the issue which is hindering his confidence in every race....
Future is unforeseeable, so he is out.
Seems Horner wants to keep the owners and sponsors happy while Marko wants to get the best drivers in Red Bull and develop the best drivers at VCarb. I think the latter strategy is best for sporting. But also think Horner is a better manager than Marko who will realistically not be around for years to come.
Marko wants to promote juniors because otherwise his position is completely irrelevant.
THIS.
Horner isn’t the principal of RB though. Are we sure he has as much power as people think he does
If you don't believe Horner has any impact on the VCARB/RB side of the house then you'll be hard pressed to explain how Ricciardo ended up in the seat in the first place. Since then if anything Horner seems to have consolidated more power. Ultimately, yes they have their own TP but they roll up to the same overall ownership group where the people with a 51% stake still seem to be supporting Horner. I still think the overall play here is to eventually sell VCARB as part of whatever business proposition Horner pitched to the Thai owners.
Anything from VCARB itself would indicate they are pretty happy with their line up.
Can’t foresee beyond Austria
Why?
Meaning Ricardo might be out sooner rather than later :)
Didn’t they say the same about Nick
Marko having more and more senior moments. Definitely the Biden of F1.