Against all odds Red Bull has decided to end the season with Sergio Perez despite the terrible results in the championship. A choice due to various factors, but above all to that of not having sufficiently convincing alternatives. Among the few names was that of Daniel Ricciardo. Former Red Bull man returned to the team last year as third driver until officially taking over from De Vries at AlphaTauri. Ricciardo's return, also in anticipation of a possible replacement with Perez, however, it wasn't very positive, and this pushed Helmut Marko and Christian Horner to continue with the Mexican.
Red Bull had chosen Ricciardo to replace Perez but the results forced Helmut Marko to withdraw
In a recent interview, the super consultant of the Anglo-Austrian team, Helmut Marko spoke about the possibility of promoting Ricciardo back to the official team in place of Perez. A possibility that Red Bull immediately thought about. But that was obviously linked to the performance of the Australian driver who would have had to beat his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda in the comparison to aspire to Perez's seat.
If Perez's performances were disappointing in this first part of the season - there was even talk of a maximum gap from Verstappen that had to be respected equal to 100 points, widely surpassed by the Mexican, Ricciardo's were equally disappointing to the point of convincing Helmut Marko to give up on the Australian's return. Even though he was Red Bull's first choice, as Marko himself explains to ESPN.
“The idea was to bring Ricciardo back to Red Bull if he turned out to be significantly faster than Yuki Tsunoda in Racing Bulls – explained Marko as reported by ESPN - but Daniel has had ups and downs and for now he has not met the criteria to become a Red Bull driver again.”
Red Bull will now have to think about how to settle the Perez issue
Whether it's due to the pressures of Liberty Medium, whether due to the lack of alternatives or the sponsors and the support that the Mexican brings, now the Perez issue must be resolved on the track. As Helmut Marko explains, Perez's problems are not limited to a nervous single-seater but to an undriveable car. For this reason, according to the latest rumors, Red Bull would like to try to return to RB20 original, to allow the Mexican to rediscover the feeling that he lost from the fourth race onwards.
“Perez? We need to make the car easier to drive, the more difficult it is the more the difference between Verstappen and Perez emerges. When the rear starts to move Max defines the car as 'nervous', for Perez it is 'undriveable'”.
Source statements: FormulaPassion
