After weeks of intense speculation, Red Bull confirmed this week that Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo will stay exactly where they are entering the second half of the F1 2024 season.
Question one (of, er, one): who won the Formula 1 World Championship in 2008 and 2021?
If you answered Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, correct.
But also not quite right, because you could have said Ferrari and Mercedes, who took the Constructors’ title in those respective seasons. Yet the fact that you (probably) didn’t answer Ferrari and Mercedes first tells you all you need to know about how both F1 Championships compare.
All the prestige, all the glory, in this sport will forever be associated with the Drivers’ Championship.
The Constructors’? It’s a good one to win and it looks great as the cherry on the top of a successful season, yet always has – and always will – exist in the shadow of the big one.
For some years now the real importance of the Constructors’ Championship has been found towards the back, where position changes really do have a material effect on a team’s ability to develop the car for the following season and impact the organisation’s overall wellbeing and future prospects.
For teams of Red Bull’s stature, it has become nothing more than a nice bonus – literally so in the case of the on-the-ground workforce – at the end of the year.
So, yes, Red Bull’s decision to retain Perez may well have just handed the initiative to McLaren – now just 42 points behind and, crucially, with both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri making significant and consistent contributions – in the teams’ title race.
Yet how much would it really matter in the grander scheme of things if Red Bull were to lose the lesser crown?
Never underestimate Perez’s role in the emergence of Max Verstappen as one of the greatest drivers in F1 history over recent years, affording Max the platform – the breathing space – to reach up and touch the sky.
By being Sergio Perez – slow, inconsistent and uninspiring – he allows Max Verstappen to be Max Verstappen.
This dynamic has worked exceedingly well since 2021, bringing an unprecedented level of success to the team, and it is one Red Bull have always been wary of throwing away unless they absolutely must.
If that determination to preserve it has to extend to conceding the Constructors’ title, then so be it.
Red Bull can’t keep hoping for Sergio Perez to fix himself
The 2024 Constructors’ title may be a price Red Bull are prepared to pay, but what if Perez’s lack of contribution starts to put Verstappen’s own reign at increased risk?
That’s when they won’t be able to ignore it anymore. That’s the point at which they will have to intervene.
With a 78-point advantage over Lando Norris, Verstappen should – provided there are no more meltdown afternoons like Hungary – almost certainly secure a fourth consecutive title over the remaining 10 races of 2024.
But what about next year?
The likely, mouthwatering narrative of F1 2025 is one of a weakening Red Bull still reeling from the loss of Adrian Newey, fighting with all their might to hold off a maturing McLaren with Mercedes and Ferrari, energised by the arrival of Lewis Hamilton, somewhere in the mix too.
If the fight at the front is even closer in 2025, both McLarens, Ferraris and Mercedes will gladly dive into the six-tenth (or more) gap that has often separated Verstappen and Perez on the average starting grid over recent months.
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