mendis wrote: ↑31 May 2023, 07:15
Bill wrote: ↑31 May 2023, 06:31
selvam_e2002 wrote: ↑31 May 2023, 05:17
Yuki is surviving due to Honda. in 2026 he will be kicked out by RB.
yes yuki is a honda driver,but one thing i noticed is europeans only want drivers from european decent.those from other countries get ridiculed like pasto maldonado who went on to win a race in a midfield car while underperformance from euro driver's slip under the radar.when perez went to redbull he was 0.6 tenth behind max same as Albon and gasly so no he is nothing special.the cars have changed they are not difficult as those from 2021.if young driver perform well promote him he can either swim or sink that's just the nature of the game,if he underperform in a big team you dont waste time on him u move on
I have seen a lot of nationalism driven fan following, especially for British, Spanish and Australian drivers. But I haven't necessarily seen a dislike to non Europeans. Fangio and Senna are examples of non Europeans that draw huge fan following. There have been a lot of asian drivers who fell short on talent while they all got opportunities. Zhou is an Asian driver and is currently doing very well and if he improves to consistently beat Bottas, he would probably become an attractive proposition for other teams. While Maldonado was fast, but a reckless driver who didn't seem to control his errors, Perez did well to get to Red Bull. Again, Perez doesn't have the same skills of an Alonso or Max or Lewis or Lando or George. He wouldn't ever garner the same following like that of other illustrious South American drivers like Senna and Fangio, because of his level of talent. If there is a high level of talent, there is bound to be following, regardless of region of origin. In fact, there have been more failed drivers from Europe than from non European regions!
In my experience it's much more country-specific than vast regions like Europe or Asia. Mick Schumacher is a great example. German F1 media played up the fact Haas wasn't willing (arguably unable) to provide the resources necessary to develop a young driver and wasn't as tolerant as they should've been of the mistakes you'd expect. English F1 media focused on the fact his last name gave him a leg up on others through the development ladder and argued he wasn't F1 quality to begin with. As ever both sides made good points, and the truth is somewhere in the middle. To bring this back to a Red Bull thread, I've heard European voices who are overly nice and overly critical towards Yuki. My opinion is that his value to the main team is entirely dependent on how they feel about Perez and Riccardio. If Red Bull feels Perez won't be willing to back Verstappen in a title fight (I wouldn't after Brazil last year) and Riccardio can't be his old self with the ground effect cars, I think giving Yuki a chance at the main team would be completely justified, especially since it appears Red Bull has gone from producing an especially difficult car to drive to one that can accommodate both both Max and Sergio's preferences.
That being said, my choice to replace Perez in 2024/5 would be Albon. If he didn't have those incidents with Hamilton, both of which Hamilton was penalized for, he would have achieved the same # of podiums Perez did in 2021 in a much less competitive car and only a few more races. He might not be able to pull off defenses as brilliant as Perez did at Turkey and Abu Dhabi in 2021, but impacting rivals' strategy more often would easily compensate for this.
