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What’s the bigger picture behind Red Bull ejecting Daniel Ricciardo from RB again so Liam Lawson can return to the Formula 1 grid, is Lawson good enough to justify the change, did Ricciardo deserve better? Is it more evidence that Red Bull’s once-enviable driver system is now a mess?
Here are our team’s initial takes on the latest mid-season reshuffle in Red Bull’s F1 line-up.
RED BULL CLEARLY WANTS PEREZ OUT
Ben Anderson
To me it feels like Red Bull is desperate to rid itself of Sergio Perez any way it can, even though it agreed a contract extension with him earlier this year!
Yuki Tsunoda now appears to be nothing more than the ‘junior team’ benchmark, who (apparently for reasons of character) will never get promoted but exists instead to allow Red Bull to gauge whoever drives alongside him.
There was clearly hope in some quarters of the organisation that Ricciardo would blow Tsunoda away in 2024 and therefore make it relatively easy to justify binning Perez.
But Ricciardo, by his own admission, has been underwhelming at RB, especially so for a driver who’s won multiple grands prix. So, locked in a scenario where neither RB driver makes an overwhelming case for promotion, Red Bull is now rolling the dice on Lawson.
There must be renewed hope within Red Bull that he is the one who can finally blow Tsunoda away and turn the screw again on Perez. It’s the only logical rationale for binning a driver you already know plenty about for another driver you already know plenty about!
This is an audition for Perez’s 2025 Red Bull seat, but if Lawson doesn’t make the grade against Tsunoda over these final six races of 2024 then Red Bull is running out of options to make a switch before the major rules change coming in 2026.
In that scenario, I expect some serious wooing of George Russell to take place.
THERE’S LOGIC HERE BUT RICCIARDO DESERVED BETTER
Scott Mitchell-Malm
The more I have come to the conclusion that this Ricciardo/Lawson change is about a 2025 Red Bull Racing audition for Lawson, the more sense it has made. Although I still believe Ricciardo deserved for it to be handled better.
There was an argument that if RB would make the change for 2025 anyway, then it might as well crack on. That approach has its merits. With just six events to go though, it didn't feel like it was worth the embarrassment to Ricciardo or the risk to Lawson. He's done very little driving this year and even with a decent gap now until the next race, he's got to get up to speed quickly.
But if it's about how Lawson responds to pressure, how he handles being thrown into a tough challenge, and viewing him through a different lens than just 'is he good enough for RB?', these six races take on extra meaning. They are more useful. And so the change makes more sense.
Despite all of that, I struggle to think that Red Bull needed to wait until now to know for sure. All of these arguments are the same as they were before Singapore. And I think Ricciardo's career, his conduct, and his perfectly acceptable 2024 performance level in terms of what RB needed, all merited a clearer set of circumstances.
I'm glad he grabbed control of the narrative himself as the Singapore weekend progressed and was able to get something of a send-off, say his goodbyes, and savour the moment. Maybe Red Bull played a part in encouraging that. But it still felt a little weird and unbecoming.
F1 doesn't carry passengers...even lovely ones
Mark Hughes
There was that Red Bull test at Silverstone in which he went very well. That rescued an F1 career which would otherwise have been dead after two years of under-performance at McLaren. But we’ve seen only occasional flashes of that sort of speed in two further seasons.
Everyone wanted him to succeed, to find the old Daniel. Good will got him far further than almost anyone else would have got. It was time. It was well past time actually.
F1 doesn’t carry passengers. But let’s salute the great driver Daniel was for 7 straight seasons. And the terrific human being he is.
MAKE OR BREAK FOR LAWSON’S CAREER
Gary Anderson
We know from the past that Red Bull is fairly brutal with its driver decisions and the way it has treated Ricciardo - externally at least - shows there is no change in how it goes about its business.
Hopefully there was more direct communication about this being a possibility and the team was more honest with him in person over the last few weeks and months.
All that said, putting Lawson in for these last six races is actually to only way for Red Bull to judge his true talent and commitment.
When and/or if RB has a trouble-free weekend he can be directly compared to Tsunoda, who is no slouch.
So Lawson doesn’t really have anywhere to hide. If he is OK, a seat with RB is his for the taking next year, if he is exceptional a seat with Red Bull could be available. So for him, it can be a win-win situation.
But if he doesn’t thrash Tsunoda then he will have had his chance and blown it. His future is now in his hands.
WHY IS RED BULL SCRAMBLING FOR DRIVERS AGAIN?
Edd Straw
This situation sounds the latest in a long sequence of alarm bells that have been ringing for years when it comes to Red Bull's driver strategy. It should be uniquely well-placed in Formula 1 given it has the resources, the desirability and, thanks to having two teams, the capacity to ensure it is always strong when it comes to its driver line-up and has a clear plan in place.
What it utterly lacks is the strategy.
Yes, Red Bull has ostensibly ticked the most difficult box by always having a topliner in one of its cars, a lineage of Sebastian Vettel, Ricciardo then Max Verstappen.
Today, it does at least have an obvious next-cab-off-the-rank in Lawson, but there's still obvious dissatisfaction with several of the drivers it had in active service already.
In recent memory, Red Bull has re-signed drivers it once dropped three times - Brendon Hartley, Alex Albon and Daniil Kvyat. Mid-season changes have been common and it came close to axing Perez in the summer break.
Red Bull has achieved great things in Formula 1 as a result of not only vast resources but also clear, strategic decision-making. It's baffling that this doesn't appear to apply to the drivers.
The majority of F1 teams now have junior driver schemes and the fight to land the next big thing is more intense than it has ever been. With such fierce competition, there's a need to be rigorous when it comes to securing and developing the talent. The planning must be long-term, with Red Bull not simply flitting from year to year and now just scrambling to sort 2025. It should have notional plans in place for well beyond that, doubly so given the ongoing concerns about whether or not Verstappen will see out his current contract, which runs to the end of 2028. And even if he does stick around through it, 2029 is something Red Bull should already have in mind.
The chickens are coming home to roost given that there's every chance Red Bull will win the drivers' championship with Verstappen this year but lose the constructors' championship.
There's nothing wrong with having a number one and number two driver, but there needs to be far more precise planning when it comes to its driver decision-making process.
There have been signs the scheme is being revamped with the return of the Red Bull driver search, but it's essential that it uses the four driver pieces it has on the F1 board in active play far more effectively.
Red Bull has turned what should be a unique strength into a weakness for far too long.
RICCIARDO REALISED HIS TIME WAS UP
Matt Beer
It didn't seem like Ricciardo had any inkling his F1 career was about to (probably) end until midway through the Singapore Grand Prix weekend.
Then, once that penny dropped, he made the most eloquent case for why it had to end now himself.
His typically candid and admirable reflections on whether he could still match an ever-rising calibre of younger drivers now he was 35 and the acknowledgement that he'd only come back to prove he could be Max Verstappen's Red Bull team-mate again and had failed in that quest showed that there was nothing for him to gain, let alone RB or Red Bull, from him being in that seat for the rest of 2024.
The comeback had been worth a go. It hadn't all been bad, far from it. But 35-year-old multiple grand prix winner Ricciardo, hero of some of the greatest moments of an often turgid Mercedes-steamrollered mid-2010s F1, didn't need to spend the rest of 2024 traipsing around the world and risking his life to make a not-quite-good-enough contribution to a fight for midfield constructors' championship placings.
It is a shame he didn't get to have more personal control over the timing of his F1 chapter closing. He deserved to have done.
But regardless of who else is waiting in Red Bull's wings or what its wider plans are, Ricciardo's story was over. He made that clear himself.
