AtlasZX wrote: ↑09 Jul 2024, 11:48
djones wrote: ↑08 Jul 2024, 22:36
Max is the teams main interest (rightly so) and what Max wants, Max gets.
He wants a mediocre team mate that won’t take points, poles or wins from him. So my vote is they will use Daniel. They don’t want an unknown that might be fast such as Lawson.
This is also a mistake from RBR, Max is definetly a great driver, but if he suddently leaves (like Vettel did in 2014) for whatever reasons, they won't have many other options. they will have Perez-Ricciardo or Perez-Lawson, and both options currently looks awfull.
To be clear, I don't think he will, but in F1 you need options bcs random stuff always happens.
I think this is nonsense again repeating on the point that Max has a say in the second driver. He repeated several times he does not care and he does not have a good relationship with Perez anymore.
The rest still stands true. If Max leaves, they have a problem. (As any other team when the best driver leaves.)
The approach is and was always difficult to get a top driver out of your youth team. Imagine Real Madrid would try to mainly fill up from their youth...
But...I do not see him "suddenly" leaving. This would mean that the contract is not worth the paper. Which means other drivers have the same option, so they will just hunt another top driver.
SirBastianVettel wrote: ↑09 Jul 2024, 11:25
basti313 wrote: ↑09 Jul 2024, 11:16
If this would be the case, he would not be at RedBull as reserve driver.
Do you mean this from Lawson's perspective or Red Bull's? Lawson doesn't have any other options while he is still contracted by Red Bull. And for Red Bull he is a fine reserve driver, but I doubt more than that.
They are building and backing him since years, paying expensive drives for him. DTM and SuperFormula was VERY costly. Flying him around the world as reserve is also costly (while they would have alternatives in F2 and RB). They spend a lot of money on this guy.
To be honest, I do not see him much different from a Piastri. He just needs the seat.
But I also see your point:
They claimed that they want Ricciardo as benchmark at RB. Last season was no benchmark with only 5 consecutive races and this season is a bit of a up and down. But they will have done benchmarking in the summer. If they do not put Lawson in one of the cars latest next year I agree on your point that he is done and not worth a seat.