Lawson did perform better than Tsunoda last year, although very small sample size. Give 1.5 years to Lawson and see what they have in him. Keep Tsunoda at VCARB so the obligation to Honda is fulfilled
How are you claiming that Lawson performed better than yuki. Yuki out qualified him in all but one event(where he was blocked by max in the 1st run). In the races, yuki was a victim of poor luck (Monza DNS), bad strategy(Zandavoort) and people fucking crashing into him(Singapore). The 2 races (Japan and Qatar) which are actually comparable, yuki had, by a very slim margin, the better average finishing position. Lawson was pretty close (in the races at least) but claiming he was faster is just a lie.
Even if Lawson has a higher ceiling than tsunoda, throwing him to the Max infested waters of Red Bull with no preparation seems like the wrong move to me.
Red Bull is not continuing with Honda's PU from 2026, why would they carry a Honda sponsored driver when there are better options available.
They wouldn't but 2026 is a year and a half away. Tsunoda is the perfect no risk stop gap until that time. He is clearly not seen as a long term option by red bull so they can keep him in the car while Lawson, hadjar and possibly linblad gain F1 experience. If yuki performs at a high enough level, Red Bull can think about retaining him or else they can let him go and promote one of their youngsters who will have the benefit of having 1.5 years of experience. Yuki too would be open to this because he can move on to honda powered aston in 2026. This option has no downsides for red bull atleast in a sporting context.
I think you are grossly overestimating the amount of fans checo has in India.
Yes yuki will bring no where near the sales that checo brings but red Bull will have to weigh that alongside the possible damage to brand value that comes with not finishing first
Yeah. Extending Perez's contract while sainz was available is a clear sign that they wanted what was better for the team. Just turned out that perez has become so slow that he is not able to fulfil his role of supporting Verstappen.
Valtteri was pretty candid about how damaging it was to be in that role, and seemed pretty happy to be away from it when he signed with Alfa Romeo.
Yeah ethically having a designated number two is not a good thing. The number two is mentally and emotionally affected in a major way but F1 is a cutthroat sport where the team is only looking for what's best for it
People say this all the time completely ignoring the fact that Red Bull was courting Lando when they thought they had a chance to sign him alongside Max.
Yeah I am aware of this. I think the reason Lando is exempt from this 'should not fight Verstappen requirement' because of 3 factors :-
He and Max are buddies so I think red Bull thinks that they will be able to manage both them without there being much toxicity(though the same was true for Lewis and Nico and look how that turned out when they started fighting for titles)
Lando is bloody quick, very close to the level that Verstappen, Lewis and Fernando(at least before this season) operate at so the upside provided by his speed is greater than the downside of potential toxicity and intra team sabotage
Lando is younger than Verstappen and unlike max has never expressed any desire to move to other racing competitions so I think they see having Lando in the team as insurance for the long term incase max actually leaves.
The above points are why I believe that Lando gets a pass so to say. If they actually wanted to put the best available driver in perez's seat, they would be putting sainz in there but they don't want that as sainz doesn't bring the benefits that Lando brings. They either want a driver who is the best fit for the team or someone who is quick enough that they are willing to work around the negatives of such a line-up.
Edit : just want to say how good I feel to have discussions like these here on lemmy. The community here is pretty small as compared to reddit so I was missing these long but respectful discussions like these. Cheers @FrostyTrichs@walledgarden.xyz
Because that's totally never happened with Max and Checo? Team orders to swap places that get ignored, second guessing radio calls about strategy compared to your teammate, etc.
Yeah I don't remember any incident where perez refused to swap places with max when he was ahead and the only time max was asked to swap for perez to go ahead was when max was racing with a damaged car. Usually max is around 10-50 seconds ahead of perez so there is no chance of them sabotaging each others races
Even going back to Lewis and Nico, Merc kept Nico until he chose to leave them, even through the conflict.
While this is true, their decision to keep bottas alongside Hamilton in every season after 2017 was substantially influenced by the fact that they did not want to create a toxic atmosphere like what they had with Lewis and Nico by getting a better, more competitive driver.
Because having two equally fast and strong headed drivers is often counterproductive to a teams goal because they will fight with each other instead to working together for the benefit of the team. See alpines line up now or their previous line up with Alonso and ocon
I'm not convinced Red Bull or anyone else thinks Yuki has a ceiling much higher than where he's currently at.
Which according to me is perfect for them. They want somebody solid, consistent and fast but not enough to threaten Verstappen. Yuki fits this bill. If they actually wanted somebody who would beat Verstappen in a straight fight occassionally they would have jumped at opportunity to bring in sainz. What they want is a driver what bottas was to merc and I believe yuki could be that
Red Bull is unfortunately cursed with comparing everyone to Max so they are perpetually hunting for someone as good or better than he is
There is nobody fitting this bill in the RB stables (or outside for that matter). Neither did perez fit this bill so then hiring him seems an odd decision. Lawson and hadjar dont fit these requirements either and since they are rookies throwing them into Verstappen infested waters seems more like a plan to destroy their career than advance it.
In all this drama a brilliant one stopper by yuki is going under the radar