Macklaren wrote: ↑30 Jun 2024, 16:55
I guess if they still support him it shows who THEY really are
Max drives like Michael Schumacher -- it's amusing, no? He's Red Bull's lead driver and a straight-forward (if excessive like Schumacher) racer, are Red Bull fans going to cheer for Ricciardo (who abandoned RBR) or Perez instead?
P5 & P7 is not the result RBR-Honda wanted, but it's still solid points. Ideally Perez would be more competitive than P7.
Verstappen is not really at risk in the WDC standings for Red Bull - Honda, regardless of losing points here.
If Verstappen will race the other RBR like this (e.g., Baku 2017), you can see why RBR may prefer not to put Alonso or Sainz (and especially not Ocon or Hamilton!) in the second car -- RBR carbon fibre flying everywhere!
RBR had offered the second drive to Norris, but maybe it's for the best interests of the RBR composites department that Norris turned that down...
Obviously Verstappen has plenty of race victories (as do Red Bull and even "Honda RBPT" engines as well "RBPT" and Honda engine entrants), so I wouldn't have minded Norris getting past (I was even cheering for Russell and
Mercedes of all teams at the end!) but (obviously) Verstappen was keen to defend at any cost!