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Both Daniel Ricciardo and Liam Lawson were poised if Red Bull had decided to eject Sergio Perez from its main Formula 1 team during the summer break.
The fact Perez is staying on - for now at least - could be the difference between a seat in the champion team's car and being on the F1 grid at all for either Lawson or Ricciardo.
IS RICCIARDO IN TROUBLE?
Red Bull keeping Perez doesn't reflect well on Ricciardo as it means the better run of form he was on for RB before the summer break wasn't good enough to force his way into the main team - which was always the primary goal of his mid-2023 F1 comeback.
But that's all it was: not enough to force his way into the car. He still needs Red Bull to actually pull the trigger on dropping Perez. And if it did then Ricciardo still seems like the favoured plug-in.
Unfortunately for him, at least right now, Red Bull seems to sincerely believe it could have done more, or could be doing more, to help Perez. And in that case it gives the incumbent driver the benefit of the doubt, especially when the next-in-line has been good but not stunningly good of late.
If Red Bull had an absolute superstar waiting in the wings then Perez would be toast.
If this was early 2016 with Verstappen at Toro Rosso, Perez would go the way Daniil Kvyat went. But that prodigious young talent doesn’t exist. Lawson is not 2016 Verstappen (he’s not even on the grid) and is not a guarantee of an immediate upgrade on Perez.
Ricciardo can still have the hopes of getting in that car, if Perez falters further after the break, and at least his pre-summer form has firmed up his position. It wasn’t that long ago Ricciardo needed to prove himself to keep his own seat, let alone take Perez’s.
Ricciardo can at least be confident he’s not about to be jettisoned for Lawson. There will be no driver changes on the RB side for now, but there’s still an eye on 2025: what happens if none of this works and Perez struggles in the next few races?
So while Ricciardo may have had a vote of not-total-confidence for now, a driver change somewhere in the Red Bull ranks is coming sooner or later, so he needs to be on top form from Zandvoort onwards.
WHAT HAPPENS TO LAWSON?
Even though its young driver programme has been quite chaotic of late, Red Bull has a bit of a talent logjam to resolve - with Lawson’s situation the one in need of urgent attention.
It’s well established that Red Bull’s got to offer him a 2025 F1 race seat by September to guarantee keeping him. Otherwise he could become a free agent.
But the way the driver market has gone, Lawson might not have any opportunities elsewhere anyway. That could be helpful for Red Bull but not Lawson himself.
It looks desperately unlikely that the Red Bull line-ups will be the same in 2025, which means Lawson should get a look in somewhere.
But one of the consequences of dragging this out is that Lawson remains stuck, waiting for a Red Bull seat, when perhaps if he’d been free sooner he could have landed a full Audi commitment and taken all the uncertainty away.
Former Audi F1 team CEO Andreas Seidl was quite keen on Lawson and certainly had conversations. But now Seidl's been replaced by Mattia Binotto, who is expected to favour experience. That means Lawson has probably lost a realistic alternative and is now completely at the mercy of how Red Bull lets this play out.
Lawson had more test outings this week. He was due to share the 2024 RB with Ricciardo on a filming day at Imola, which had been framed as a shootout between them to see who was faster in case the Perez seat did become available. Lawson also had a planned 2022 AlphaTauri car programme as part of the same test.
So, Lawson’s still getting his baseline Red Bull opportunities. But the wait goes on for something bigger - making his situation just one of many affected by Red Bull betting the house on Perez.
