He talked a massive game during the opening races, but he’s failed to get into Q3 at half the races so far. It’s incredible how Verstappen just stomps everyone thrown into the other car, young or experienced, and in every area. I honestly don’t think Checo “the tyre whisperer” Perez is better than Ver at tyre-saving, nor strategy, nor raw pace…
Is there anyone who RB would feasibly replace Per with? Maybe Norris? I’m not a huge fan personally, but I know he’s got plenty of cachet at the moment.
This guy Albon seems pretty good. Definitely outperforming that Williams. RB should give him a shot!
Really though. While Norris had a good weekend I don’t think Perez is a worse driver than him. Verstappen is just a legend. In the league of Hamilton and Alonso who, when they gel with the car, can work magic and leave their teammates in the dust.
See, I think that now, while their car has such a great advantage, is a great time to groom someone who can fight when the margin is much smaller and who can really get in close to Verstappen to give the pitwall strategy options and maximise points. Now, for sure, a journeyman driver (Perez, gasly, albon) is fine. But get your rosberg or bottas in that other seat now and they’ll be up to speed when it matters
Perz will get booted if he loses the constructors for RB or excessively crashes.
I’d imagine he knows his place and RB likes it that way.
I would love to know what his problems are. Did rb just completely build the car around verstappen and now it doesn’t suit him anymore? Is he just bad? I don’t know.
Ricciardo is the reserve pilot and he’s waiting for a chance to return. Perez is just making Horner’s decision easy, he won’t be around much more if he doesn’t improve his racing.
Exactly. Verstappen didn’t leave Ricciardo in the dust when they were teammates. Admittedly, Verstappen had not yet reached his prime, but I’m still certain Ricciardo would do well in the second car.
Are we forgetting that Ric got absolutely destroyed by Norris? I don’t think he’d do better than Checo.
Maybe Ric meshes better with the way the RB handles? He had a very established driving style at RB which didn’t wind up translating to the way the McLaren ran. Maybe throwing him back into a RB/RB adjacent car will help bring out the better performance he exhibited in the RB.
I like Perez, but he is underperforming. Who else have they got, though? Tsunoda and De Vries won’t be any better.
There’s two drivers I could maybe see being an improvement while still being a clear number two: Bottas and Sainz. But I’m not sure it’d serve Red Bull’s goals in the long run.
Ricciardo is their reserve driver, and was able to keep pace with Verstappen when they were teammates (although VER only got better and RIC only got worse since that time). The driver market is a bit thin at the moment.
