The two-pronged problem Red Bull faces if it moves to replace Perez

“I think Helmut has just signed his first nine-year-old.”

Christian Horner revealed something new about Red Bull’s much-vaunted junior team at the 2024 Mexican Grand Prix. The scheme – Formula 1’s most comprehensive, albeit far from universally appreciated – is undergoing a redevelopment, or at least an urgent restock as ‘driver advisor’ Helmut Marko goes wild in the aisles. That it needs to after committing vast capital sums since 2001 highlights a certain rot setting in.

You could argue the decline began some time ago. Red Bull’s top squad has been fielding a driver who had already made 191 grand prix starts when he joined for 2021. But these days, no matter how long Red Bull says he’s contracted to race alongside Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez is really on a perennial notice period.

Yet no driver has graduated from the ‘junior’ RB squad since it was known as Toro Rosso back in 2019. The AlphaTauri era passed in a swish without any of its drivers getting a look in at Red Bull Racing – indeed, Pierre Gasly was deemed unworthy of a second chance and released into Alpine’s hands.

In 2024, the Red Bull driver line-up across its two teams has been a seemingly never-ending soap opera, with five principal characters. Negatively fielding the mainest-of-main-character energy is Verstappen, who wasted no time in chucking his team under the bus when it lost its way on development with the RB20 and did little to stop speculation he might seek an early exit from his contract, which runs until the end of 2028. That Red Bull cannot keep him happy even on the way towards what still seems a certain fourth straight world title speaks volumes to his power.

The team is also haemorrhaging staff in the aftermath of Horner’s behaviour scandal and the resulting Red Bull management war – Adrian Newey to Aston Martin and Jonathan Wheatley to Sauber/Audi are the headliners. But Red Bull’s other drivers haven’t provided comforting results.

Horner and Marko's public comments have been at odds over numerous topics, including Ricciardo and Tsunoda

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Horner claimed Perez had “started the season in the best possible way” while Red Bull was still dominating and felt then “it’s his seat to lose [for 2025 onwards]” as “he’s very popular in the team”. Speaking at his home grand prix recently, Perez himself succinctly described events since then: a “terrible season”. Perez is languishing seven places and 242 points behind Verstappen in the drivers’ championship.

At RB, Daniel Ricciardo made a bafflingly low-key exit from his seat after the Singapore GP. Ricciardo had come into the season with a real shot at toppling Perez and returning like the prodigal son. Instead, like Nyck de Vries, the driver he replaced last season, he was ignominiously dismissed between races. The timing of his departure indicated the extent to which Red Bull’s leaders aren’t on the same page, since Horner revealed that Marko had wanted to drop the Australian three months earlier.

In the other VCARB 01, Yuki Tsunoda has fared better – but with few scene-stealing results. And since Liam Lawson came in for Ricciardo, a clearly discombobulated Tsunoda has made several high-profile blunders – including a shunt in Mexico qualifying which denied both RBs a shot at what they thought was a certain progression to Q3.

Apparent tensions between Horner and Marko have cooled of late, but the disagreement between the two men is central to the current dysfunction of Red Bull’s junior programme

Lawson has made quite the entrance, irking Fernando Alonso in Austin and colliding with Perez next time out. He boldly gave the home hero the finger later in the Mexican race. “I don’t think that’s what Helmut likes,” he said by way of apology, but Marko was moved to say “if it had been someone else” then Lawson’s aggression would have been appreciated. Fire is a key trait of any successful Red Bull driver, after all…

Trouble at the top

Red Bull magnate Dietrich Mateschitz’s death in 2022 precipitated a power struggle over the company’s F1 operations, the ugliness of which was exposed when Horner’s alleged harassment of a female employee was weaponised earlier this year.

Apparent tensions between Horner and Marko have cooled of late, but the disagreement between the two men is central to the current dysfunction of Red Bull’s junior programme. Whether the topic of conversation is the timing of Ricciardo’s removal, Perez’s contract renewal, who within the Red Bull Junior Team is ripe for promotion, or which outside candidates might be in the frame, Horner and Marko seem to revel in publicly contradicting each other.

Marko has been the central figure for Red Bull’s junior driver development for its entire 23-year existence and beyond. But, as evidenced by Perez’s hiring and continued employment alongside Verstappen, his hits have been far fewer of late.

Marko's recent additions to the Red Bull junior team have been a mixed bag

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

The word “scattergun” has been used in the paddock regarding his signings lower down the junior programme’s ranks these days (and could account for the sardonic tone of Horner’s comment about signing a nine-year old). At the same time, Marko deserves much credit for making talent development a central part of how Red Bull has gone about its racing; without the energy drinks giant’s resources many of the drivers presently on the grid (and, if you include Jack Doohan, arriving shortly) wouldn’t have got there.

But it seems that even if Red Bull does finally ditch Perez and open a spot in its ranks once again, there are two competing approaches on how to solve this issue. Again, Horner and Marko are seemingly pitted against each other.

At the Singapore GP, Horner pointed out how Mercedes’ George Russell “is out of contract at the end of the next year” and “it would be foolish not to take that into consideration”, since “we’re not afraid to go out of the [Red Bull junior driver] pool”.

Naturally, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, a long-time Horner adversary, declaimed this as “stirring s**t up”. But Marko’s “Russell is Mercedes-Benz-affiliated and now we are focusing on our juniors” comment was a more meaningful shooting down of the idea.

A much more likely outside hire for 2025 is Franco Colapinto. The Argentine, a product of the Williams young driver programme, has taken just five races to pass the number of points the man he replaced, Logan Sargeant, amassed in 36 GPs.

Colapinto has been heavily linked with a move into the Red Bull fold for next year and it is known that Red Bull has been negotiating with Williams to make it happen. As a bonus, Colapinto’s profile in his home country has opened the tap for several lucrative sponsorship deals already, which would ameliorate the loss of Perez’s Latin American backers.

Tsunoda has Honda’s support but this is a diminishing factor since the Japanese company is moving to Aston Martin in 2026. Red Bull’s leaders also have doubts over whether his mindset is robust enough to handle being Verstappen’s team-mate, and fear he may implode like Gasly, Alex Albon and Daniil Kvyat before him.

The door is Hadjar

Hadjar is in contention for the Formula 2 title, but may yet miss out on a graduation

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

The presence of these outside candidates in the conversation highlights the stuttering nature of Red Bull’s junior production line. But it does currently have five drivers racing on the F1 support bill in Formula 2 and Formula 3, and three more in Formula Regional and Formula 4.

Of these, Isack Hadjar is currently fighting for the F2 crown – around that championship’s ever-frustrating late-season hiatus. This has been a problem for many juniors trying to achieve promotion, since their final championship positions – and, therefore, superlicence eligibility – aren’t known until nearly the end of the calendar year. This is well past the point most F1 driver line-ups have been set.

It has been suggested to GP Racing that Hadjar has little chance of an F1 step with Red Bull regardless of his F2 outcome. Meanwhile, his fellow F2 Red Bull Junior Team members Pepe Marti and Oliver Goethe currently lack the results momentum usually expected. Likewise, Ayumu Iwasa – who is these days racing in Super Formula and, like Tsunoda, is tied to Honda.

Red Bull’s junior promotions just haven’t worked out since Verstappen earned the ultimate one in going from Toro Rosso to Red Bull Racing in 23 races – in many ways because he is such a difficult team-mate

Of Red Bull’s two Formula 3 drivers – Arvid Lindblad and Tim Tramnitz – Lindblad is said to currently have the best shot at graduating to F1. But that is surely at least a year away, since he has just been announced as a Campos Racing F2 driver for 2025.

However, there’s already a most likely sequence of events if Perez is indeed ejected come the year’s end. This is that Lawson could well replace him alongside Verstappen for 2025 as a true audition to assess if the feisty Kiwi is the answer to Red Bull’s long-term problem of filling its second seat.

In case he isn’t, with 2026 in mind the team will also court drivers already on the up in F1 – Oscar Piastri’s name is regularly mentioned. And that’s all with or without Verstappen.

“The junior programme has been tremendously successful over the years,” Horner replied when GP Racing asked about its health in Mexico. “We’re giving many drivers the opportunity of getting to Formula 1, and even if that’s not with Red Bull Racing, they’ve gone on to have careers in other teams.

Lawson hasn't been afraid to get his elbows out in battle with Perez

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

“And the programme has changed a little. It was, in previous years, quite top-heavy in talent in Formula 2, Formula 3. That’s been inverted now, so we’re going further down the chain.

“We’ve got youngsters in karting, we’ve got youngsters in the junior formulae, and it’s always been a philosophy of Red Bull to invest in young talent. That continues to very much be the case.”

This year, Red Bull has relaunched its Red Bull Driver Search initiative, which involved inviting a group of young drivers (including some younger than 15, the lowest age in the current RBJT line-up) to Jerez in August. There it tested their skills in F4 and GP3 cars with the help of the Campos junior single-seater squad. This is akin to the search Red Bull performed around 20 years ago to promote an American driver to F1, which it did with Scott Speed.

“We don’t buy stars, we make stars,” Marko said – apparently forgetting about the decision to hire Perez.

Red Bull’s junior promotions just haven’t worked out since Verstappen earned the ultimate one in going from Toro Rosso to Red Bull Racing in 23 races – in many ways because he is such a difficult team-mate.

Verstappen’s pounding brilliance has left a succession of team-mates spat out of the Red Bull system, while the junior programme’s current weakness means there have been few viable candidates from in-house to replace Perez. When Red Bull had little opposition, this wasn’t enough of a combination to cost it titles and prize money. But when only Verstappen can take a car package to its true heights within a closer pecking order, this is really exposed.

As 2024 has shown and with the expected hit coming at the end of the year in prize money millions, the cracks in the foundations of Red Bull’s illustrious driver factory are proving to be very costly indeed.

Could Lawson become Verstappen's latest team-mate?

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