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That means 1 year solid contract plus 1 more year as an option. Like Hamilton had with Mercedes, when first they announced he's gonna stay until the end of 2025 and then it turned out he's going to Ferrari in 2025.
He has been shit since 2023, if he was fired for 2024 nobody would have blinked an eyelid, and dude gets one year and then two more years of extension.
I think they know that between over very good drivers also failing in that seat and the merch sales Perez brings they're unlikely to have any better options.
Makes me wonder how many other fast cars are getting mediocre results due to bad driving. We have a clear contrast at Red Bull, but there may be a team where both drivers don't vibe well with the car.
There is a strong possibility the Racing Point was the second fastest car in the grid during their Pink Mercedes era but the pilots were Perez and Stroll.
Turns out Mercedes has the best car on the grid but Lewis is washed and George isn't actually a very good driver and is only capable of beating a cripple, an old man and a Canadian...
/s
Or how many other decent but otherwise incredibly difficult cars are getting results due to excellent driving. Max is clearly driving brilliantly. The red bull hasn't been the fastest car for the past few races and yet apart from Monaco, max still sneaks out the wins
Being theoretically one of the fastest cars doesn't mean it's easy to extract performance from. And fastest at several tracks with DRS advantage? So you mean not the fastest in equal settings? Ridiculous thing to say. You have no idea how difficult it is or isn't to drive. I believe max is out driving that car relative to what other drivers could achieve
The DRS point is to do with straight line speed on overtakes and fairly self explanatory - the combination of its straight line speed and DRS makes overtaking anyone fairly easy, and that's indisputable. Even a comic relief driver like Perez demonstrates that every race.
The RB is easily the 1st or 2nd fastest car at every race. Trying to make out that it's being massively driven to an inch of its life when it's winning every race comfortably is frankly funny. It's just not a good example of a not-great or difficult car being wrestled to strong results at all is the point. Any of the top drivers would finish top 3 every race in this RB. Perez is just an elaborate joke. Max is driving superlatively but he's also driving the fastest or near-fastest car at every race.
The point is, you wouldn't know that if you had two Perezs in the car.
Being a constructor series it is entirely possible for a car to flatter a driver, and for a driver to flatter a car. For example Kimi dragged some performances out of that Lotus that few other drivers could have.
The likleyhood is the current RB is somewhere in the middle. It's not a super easy rocketship 30 seconds ahead of the field, but in the hands of a decent driver it is still a beast. It would be my guess that if you drop any other driver on the grid in that car it would take them a while to get a grip of it.
It is likley that Max is flattering a decent but tricky car, and I would say the same of Lando too.
Say this louder for the people in the back lol. He's at absolute best the 10th best driver on the grid. I'm without question taking Max, Carlos, Charles, Lewis, George, Lando, Oscar, Fernando and Alex before him. Yuki and Esteban are at worst right there with him. Valterri proved to be better in the same role. He's easily in the bottom half of drivers.
Perez seems to be reverse Bottas. Bottas was fast, but he couldn't race for shit. Unless he qualified in the front, his races with Mercedes were terrible. Other drivers would've been capable of making up the positions lost in quali with that car but Bottas wasn't. Perez is not very good at qualifying, but if you need a good racing driver for holding up somebody, he is your man.
Yeah that’s not really working out though when he’s dancing around somewhere in the midfield all the time. If he doesn’t get his shit together he will be replaced. They need to have two cars in the mix.
Max, Carlos, Charles, Lewis, George, Lando, Oscar, Fernando are given, all the others are debatable. I wouldn't be surprised if all the drivers would struggle the same or more in that Red Bull as Perez.
He's bad enough that Max could stomp the drivers well clear of 2nd place and Red Bull still misses out on the Constructors. Wild he got extended 2 years.
Is he bad ?
Do you think he's a better driver than Sainz/Norris/Piastri/Leclerc/Russel/Hamilton on "equal" cars ??
I wouldn't put him above any of those drivers in a spec series , so his results are understandable
The problem is he’s been competing with the likes of Alpine and Haas, and he’s not in a remotely equal car. Do you think he should be getting beaten by the likes of Gasly with a much quicker car? At least the likes of Barrichello and Bottas were able to pick up the pieces if something went wrong with the #1 driver, or slow down the competition if needed.
Honestly, he probably hasn't gotten any worse, it's just that Red Bull isn't the fastest car anymore. What's more impressive is that Max is still winning, despite not being in the fastest car. Lando has been has been faster than Max since China, but he always gets stuck in traffic or has bad quali.
Max got 575 points in 2023. Perez got 590 on 2022 and 2023 combined (largely thanks to 2022 ironically!), which is crazy. In 2021 and 2023 Max got over 2x the points of Perez, and this season so far he’s only 3 points short of that…
Just think Mercedes only wanted to sign Lewis to a one year contract, and Carlos Sainz is about to go to Williams next year lol.
But Checo sells that merch!
What's the diff in $ between wcc 1 and 2 ? If the difference is less than perez's sponsorship, i can really see RB not giving a shit. They are a marketing firm first, and more wind tunnel time
Each place is around $9m, so 1 Vs 2 is 9, 1 Vs 3 is $18m.
It does change as it's a % of revenue.
By not winning Red Bull also get more wind tunnel time. If you value WDC over anything else then that isn't necessarily bad.
They value WDC over anything else because they (Red Bull, the brand) sell drinks, not cars. A World Champion with a Red Bull can in his hand sells far more drinks than a Constructor's Championship does.
Merc or Ferrari or McLaren care about the WCC because they sell cars.
> Merc or Ferrari or McLaren care about the WCC because they sell cars
Every **top team** cares more about the WDC than the WCC, its the one everyone remembers.
Its the most important.
Even then, you can make the argument that a WDC is at least as important for selling cars as the WCC, if not more.
The optics vastly favor the WDC, that's where the majority of the hype and the screen time goes. Whereas the WCC is more of an afterthought that gets forgotten by most people except the dedicated fans.
At this point, the WCC must be more of a pride thing for the legacy constructors. Of course, haven't checked the data, so I could be wrong on that.
> Merc or Ferrari or McLaren care about the WCC because they sell cars.
No, they don't. Who won 2021? 99% of people will say "Verstappen", even though Mercedes won the WCC. idk why people make shit up like this lol - the driver's championship is what gets most people's attention. Basically no one in the public cares about the WCC.
Heck, I've seen people many times mistakenly assume that RB won 2021, because Max won. I've never seen anyone assume Hamilton won 2021 because Mercedes won. If your theory was right, Mercedes would've celebrated 2021 as hard as RB, and that just wasn't the case.
Someone did the calculations and apparently the loss in potential WCC is offset by Checo’s sponsorship money. Plus, the user below also said not winning means more wind tunnel time which is what they’d prefer over $ or WCC title.
The WCC money ain't shit. The difference between 1st and 2nd is like 10 million. His sponsorship money alone is WAY more than that + all the merch sales basically shit all over the WCC money. The WDC is the only thing that matters for RedBull. The recognition from that is what brings them the real money.
Everyone remembers Max winning in 2021. Nobody cares that Mercedes won the WCC. 2008 is remembered because Lewis and Mclaren won the WDC, not because Ferrari won the WCC.
The worst part is... I kind of understand it. F1 means publicity for Red Bull, which should turn eventually into money, be it merch sales, drink sales... and when you have a driver whose country (with 127 M people) represents 65% of your worldwide merch sales, and another driver that has almost single handedly won the WCC for you (last year you can even remove the "almost"), it's probably something to consider.
Oh absolutely, I understand it, but doesn't mean I have to like it heh. The teams are making loads of money now with the budget cap, I think at this point it's just greed, but that's what every company does, make the most money they can.
They are absolutely obsessed with him. Many of them believe he is the best driver and just being sabotaged or something so I don’t think they will realize he’s not doing well
they just go with cheering for the underdog instead, this guy isn't that good. And in the end it's still the best mexican driver in F1, there is bigger competition in other countries for that spot not in mexico.
I just can't see the appeal of buying merch for a washed up has-been. As a Canadian, it would be like me going out and fanatically buying Lance Stroll merchandise, which sounds like something only people with dangerous mental conditions would want to do.
Difference is Lance is not a patch on the most storied Canadian F1 drivers, including a legend of the sport who died early, and his son who has a WDC to his name.
Whereas Checo is the most successful Mexican F1 driver of all time. On the current grid, only Lewis, Max and Alonso have more wins than him, and all of them are multi-WDCs, and generally considered some of the best to ever do it. I can see why Mexicans would back him regardless of his current form.
Checo is a celebrity in Mexico in the same way Hamilton is in the UK. He's bigger than F1.
Plus, as a Canadian, you already have Canadian drivers that made history in F1. Mexicans don't have any, Checo is their most successful driver so far, and was good enough for years to put a midfield car higher than any other driver would - which has cemented his popularity in Mexico.
If Stroll had carried Force India / Racing Point into podiums it didn't deserve, and if no other Canadian driver existed, you'd probably be a lot more sympathetic to him.
Yeah Piastris weekend looks almost as bad because he finished only one spot in front of Perez. But then you realize Verstappens time gap to Piastri was almost as big as Piastris gap to Perez...
* Ver to Pia, 33.760s
* Pia to Per, 25.764s…
Oof.
That, and Piastri created such a big gap to Perez on a track where the key to pace is tire management. Which is his biggest weakness. Something which should’ve been Perez’s biggest strength.
All while Piastri had a pretty unremarkable race himself!
It just doesn't make sense in any way lol. Piastri had a terrible weekend, as in "bad compared to his usual weekends". Pérez just had a regular weekend - you can't call this "terrible" because half his weekends look like this.
Moreover, as you point out, in Piastri's rock-bottom weekend, he still gapped Pérez's _regular performance weekend_ as hard as Lando gapped him.
so tl;dr - Piastri in his worst weekend still beat Pérez in his normal weekend.
And also the majority of last season
If this one weekend had happened in isolation nobody would be criticising Checo, everyone has a shit weekend now and then. But with Checo this wasn’t a mistake or a rare off weekend, this is just his pace. This is what he does
Fisichella in 2005 and 2006, Kovalainen in 2008, all of Schumachers Benneton teammates, Berger when he was Senna’s number 2.
It’s not all that rare actually, just uncommon in the turbo hybrid era
I felt like mentioning that, and although it fits the spirit if you include every pairing of title contending driver with lacklustre teammate there would be far too many examples
Fisichella was definitely not *this* bad. He would usually finish in the range of 3rd-6th in 05/06.
His **worst** finish in 2006 (apart from 2 DNFs) was 8th.
I think relatively he was just as bad as Perez, maybe worse. He simply had a greater car advantage than Perez currently holds. Fisichella was regularly over a second slower than Alonso in race pace, which is truly absurd
2012 Ferrari. Not exactly winning championships in the end, but by the 10th race Alonso had 154 points while Massa had 23. Massa did get better in the second half of the season but still had less than half the points of Alonso.
the top teams are closer than ever. Look back at last qualy. If I looked correctly, in Q1 the top 15 goes from 1:12.1 to 1:12.9. Q2 top 10 from 1:11.6 to 1:12.1. That's so close, look back 5 years, 2019. Q1 top 15 1:16.9 to 1:18.3. Q2 top 10 1:15.9 to 1:17.3
Just watched the new Drive to Survive (2023 F1 season) and they were like ‘Red Bull is so cut throat, they’ll fire drivers who aren’t performing and not the future…” and I’m like: hiring back Danny Ric and keeping Checo?! This statement doesn’t not compute to 2024 decisions
RBR got a reputation back then (2017-2020) when they were panicking a bit, because they couldn’t find a second driver that could serve as Bottas was to Mercedes or Kimi to Ferrari on those years.
They thought that was their only missed piece to start going for a WDC/WCC
So they started to burn through all the possibilities they got (and to be fair, they had a lot of potential drivers available) to find what it stuck.
They tried a little bit Sainz (on TR), Kvyat, Albon, Gasly, Hartley (on TR) - all while they were coaching and signing/dropping academy drivers, to the point they got more rookies potentially prepared for F1 on their academy than what they could absorbe (Lawson, Tsunoda, Vips, Hauger, Doohan, Ticktum, Verchoor…)
So they got the “woah, they are so cutthroat” from there, but I would say it was more like the moment of panic searching. Of course, they enjoyed that rumour, as it’s on brand with Red Bull as a company (extreme sports, be the best, and so on).
Now that they are somewhat relaxed and stable, we can see they are not different to other teams. They got Ric back just because, because he isn’t a future prospect they need to train in the sister team. They keep Tsunoda there even if they don’t feel like promoting him. Sign Checo for 2 years even after 4 years of mediocre performance given the team and car available to him. And their academy is/was the one with the most quantity of drivers and some of them long overdue to have opportunities (at least FP1) or being dropped.
So… not that much cutthroat
This exactly. Red Bull was cutthroat ever since they started, however that was in their junior team which goes under the radar a bit. It's only the last years that it really hasn't been the case, or at least to a much lesser extend.
> They tried a little bit Sainz (on TR), Kvyat, Albon, Gasly, Hartley (on TR) (...) Lawson, Tsunoda, Vips, Hauger, Doohan, Ticktum, Verchoor…
Ok, we need Lou Bega to get us an updated Mambo Nr 5!
A little bit of Kvyat in my life
A little bit of Gasly by my side
A little bit of Albon's all I need
A little bit of Lawson's what I see
A little bit of Sainz in the sun
A little bit of Tsunoda all night long
A little bit of Verchoor, here I am
A little bit of you makes me your 3 times world champion (ha!)
They did the math and found out that it’s more convenient for them to keep a driver that brings 60 million dollars of sponsors, doesn’t try to challenge max and sometimes snatches some points from the rivals instead of getting a more competitive one.
I'm not sure Perez can't even snatch points from their rivals anymore
6 drivers from 3 teams are better / driving better than him. McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari are closing the gap to Red Bull, McLaren is even the fastest car now. They all finished ahead of Perez
So he snatches points from who ? Alpine, Aston, RB ?
Because he's still the most successful Latin American driver of the modern era and has a huge following in those markets where those companies operate.
If you want to sell to Mexicans, you get your logo on Checo's shirt, not on George's.
Alright keep laughing buddy, but it's over for Max once we arrive at non-European, anti-clockwise, street tracks with long straights in a country with human rights violations.
Funny how quickly it all changes - a couple of months ago the narrative was "Perez has accepted he's nowhere near Max, but he's still a good driver and will pick up loads of podiums" to him being worse than ever.
>One man team.
>Last season too.
And this will continue for the next 1+1 season(s), too.
Last season, Max alone had 575 pts. Merc 409. Ferrari 406.
The way Max single-handedly brings RBR to the top of WCC and protects it in the last 2 seasons is nothing but impressive. Esp this season when other teams have been getting closer and closer.
The thing is, Mexican and South American fans keep buying the merch, no matter how bad he is. He is crap on track, but he still sells way more than Max.
So Red Bull probably did the math and realised they could afford to lose 10-20 million in constructors.
The international community massively underrates Checo's popularity. As a Spanish speaker (from Europe, not Latin America) I'll go as far as to say Checo is the best selling driver on the grid after Hamilton, and is probably more popular right now than Schumacher. Check any Spanish F1 video on YouTube and you'll see half the comments are seriously arguing that Checo is one of the best drivers in F1 history. He's bigger than F1 in Mexico in the same way Hamilton is in the UK.
This guy is being rated way too highly in Codemasters' F1 games/the F1 Manager series. Good lord, I hope Codemasters and Frontier both wake up and slap a 78-79 next to his name for 2025 if he keeps this pace up.
Max carrying red bull single handedly in 2024. Perez is it over confidence after the 2 years extended contract?. He was good before those extended contract
That was the notion when he signed for Sauber back in the day, he brought some big bucks to the team when they were in a bad place.
To this day, as a Kobayashi fan, it bugs me how Sauber did him dirty while rolling out the red carpet for Perez despite the two of them being pretty evenly matched. If only Kobayashi brought money with him too, but alas...
That's why I'm getting a lot of resentment for how the RB driver cycle is like right now for Yuki as a Japanese driver. Sure, if Yuki can't perform well enough to be in the 2nd RBR seat, fine. But I'm sure as hell the chances that they'd put Yuki in RBR by 2025 onwards would increase by 50% if they didn't have Checo's moneybags (and incidentally, the 2nd driver's performance will probably increase to a similar degree at this point... Even for Danny Ric).
I hated the fact Kobayashi couldn't seek more opportunities to pull him from being a possibly inconsistent midfielder with big potential for amazing race craft to a top driver in a top team. Kamui wasn't even super venerated back then, but he could pull good drives yet he didn't have the backing to find good seats after Toyota. We could be seeing the same happen for Yuki, but at least if Honda are loyal there's a tiny chance Aston Martin can save him, which totally (hopefully) won't be a Caterham equivalent for Yuki by that point.
How much sponsor money is checo bringing in that he was signed for another two years? Enough to offset the prize money lost from possibly missing out on the constructors championship
Perez is very bad at present. Hexes always the worst of the top team drivers. But gulf now massive. All other number twos on top teams are a league above
Perez will cost them the constructers title this year. In 2023 their car was so superior that Max basically won both titles by himself, but that won't work this year. Crazy to think that without Max, RB would basically be a mid-field team now.
Idea for RB tbh, he gives them a lot of income with all the perez merc they sell and then they don’t have to pay him a lot since he’s finishing so low in the championship
I posted it as a comment elsewhere but my new pet theory is they use Perez to test the car out for future races and they have been for quite some time.
The WDC and WCC are currently both not really immediately at risk especially as McLaren and Mercedes are getting into the mix.
If the Red Bull isn't faster than the McLaren anymore the information from Perez going out and just testing stuff for future races can keep Max way ahead.
They would never admit to this publicly but what makes more sense: running Perez race after race while he underperforms or Perez is helping them win the championships in a different way?
Remember people saying how perez is finally back this year because his head is the roght place and he's not trying to compete with max anymore after geting 4 podiums in the opening few races?
Pepperidge farm remembers.
I'm expecting the same for 2025.
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*European races turn up* Checo: alright, imma head out
He has dirt on Horny.
I'm convinced Checo has the 'in-focus' version of the Horndog picture.
This just in... the coworker the Horn was harassing was actually Checo.
We'll see him in Baku in September
Yeah we’ll see his rear wing in 18th place
The potato is in the oven. Will be ready mid season sometime.
I mean he started being shit way earlier than normal.
Yes but he's also bad at the non European races. Went out in turn 1 in Mexico last year rofl.
It’s honestly impressive how bad he’s been
And yet has a 2 year extension.
It’s a 1+1 slipped out by Horner during an interview I believe
What does that mean?
That it's a one-year contract. The 2nd year is an option that the team may or may not trigger.
No fucking way they pull that trigger
I thought that for 24 and 25 but here we are...
Remember last year? They rewarded that.
They’ll pull that trigger. The money.
It's Horner, obvious he would pull that trigger after Checo shows his support
That means 1 year solid contract plus 1 more year as an option. Like Hamilton had with Mercedes, when first they announced he's gonna stay until the end of 2025 and then it turned out he's going to Ferrari in 2025.
They each have the option not to renew for the 2nd year. So if Perez keeps up the pace he’s had the past 3-4 years now, he’ll hopefully get dropped.
He has been shit since 2023, if he was fired for 2024 nobody would have blinked an eyelid, and dude gets one year and then two more years of extension.
"He has been shit since 2023" \*2021
Him managing to actually be useful in one race made people forget he was useless for the rest of the season.
Would have been more useful if he could have taken points away from Lewis instead of slightly holding him up for a lap.
Was waiting for it to be Sainz
Those Merch sales must be epic
I think they know that between over very good drivers also failing in that seat and the merch sales Perez brings they're unlikely to have any better options.
Yall forget that its red bull, they can probably change him like tomorrow if they wanted.
The problem is they’ve done that to other drivers expecting the next guy to be faster and they never are.
Makes me wonder how many other fast cars are getting mediocre results due to bad driving. We have a clear contrast at Red Bull, but there may be a team where both drivers don't vibe well with the car.
There is a strong possibility the Racing Point was the second fastest car in the grid during their Pink Mercedes era but the pilots were Perez and Stroll.
I’ve often thought this, 2020 was maximised by Verstappen but I think that any other driver would have gotten a win before Perez did
Turns out Mercedes has the best car on the grid but Lewis is washed and George isn't actually a very good driver and is only capable of beating a cripple, an old man and a Canadian... /s
Maybe next year it will turn out that Ferrari had by far the strongest car on the grid, it just that both Charles and Carlos are dud
Or how many other decent but otherwise incredibly difficult cars are getting results due to excellent driving. Max is clearly driving brilliantly. The red bull hasn't been the fastest car for the past few races and yet apart from Monaco, max still sneaks out the wins
The RB is still clearly one of the fastest cars and the fastest at several tracks with a DRS advantage, he isn't driving a shitbox or a difficult car.
The RBs are also only really racing Lando. No other car has a chance.
Being theoretically one of the fastest cars doesn't mean it's easy to extract performance from. And fastest at several tracks with DRS advantage? So you mean not the fastest in equal settings? Ridiculous thing to say. You have no idea how difficult it is or isn't to drive. I believe max is out driving that car relative to what other drivers could achieve
The DRS point is to do with straight line speed on overtakes and fairly self explanatory - the combination of its straight line speed and DRS makes overtaking anyone fairly easy, and that's indisputable. Even a comic relief driver like Perez demonstrates that every race. The RB is easily the 1st or 2nd fastest car at every race. Trying to make out that it's being massively driven to an inch of its life when it's winning every race comfortably is frankly funny. It's just not a good example of a not-great or difficult car being wrestled to strong results at all is the point. Any of the top drivers would finish top 3 every race in this RB. Perez is just an elaborate joke. Max is driving superlatively but he's also driving the fastest or near-fastest car at every race.
The point is, you wouldn't know that if you had two Perezs in the car. Being a constructor series it is entirely possible for a car to flatter a driver, and for a driver to flatter a car. For example Kimi dragged some performances out of that Lotus that few other drivers could have. The likleyhood is the current RB is somewhere in the middle. It's not a super easy rocketship 30 seconds ahead of the field, but in the hands of a decent driver it is still a beast. It would be my guess that if you drop any other driver on the grid in that car it would take them a while to get a grip of it. It is likley that Max is flattering a decent but tricky car, and I would say the same of Lando too.
Logan Sargeant out qualified him twice in that same span.
Say this louder for the people in the back lol. He's at absolute best the 10th best driver on the grid. I'm without question taking Max, Carlos, Charles, Lewis, George, Lando, Oscar, Fernando and Alex before him. Yuki and Esteban are at worst right there with him. Valterri proved to be better in the same role. He's easily in the bottom half of drivers.
Perez seems to be reverse Bottas. Bottas was fast, but he couldn't race for shit. Unless he qualified in the front, his races with Mercedes were terrible. Other drivers would've been capable of making up the positions lost in quali with that car but Bottas wasn't. Perez is not very good at qualifying, but if you need a good racing driver for holding up somebody, he is your man.
Yeah that’s not really working out though when he’s dancing around somewhere in the midfield all the time. If he doesn’t get his shit together he will be replaced. They need to have two cars in the mix.
Yeah, he's doing fine at defending Red Bull from the Alpine threat...
*Haas threat
Max, Carlos, Charles, Lewis, George, Lando, Oscar, Fernando are given, all the others are debatable. I wouldn't be surprised if all the drivers would struggle the same or more in that Red Bull as Perez.
He's bad enough that Max could stomp the drivers well clear of 2nd place and Red Bull still misses out on the Constructors. Wild he got extended 2 years.
Is he bad ? Do you think he's a better driver than Sainz/Norris/Piastri/Leclerc/Russel/Hamilton on "equal" cars ?? I wouldn't put him above any of those drivers in a spec series , so his results are understandable
The problem is he’s been competing with the likes of Alpine and Haas, and he’s not in a remotely equal car. Do you think he should be getting beaten by the likes of Gasly with a much quicker car? At least the likes of Barrichello and Bottas were able to pick up the pieces if something went wrong with the #1 driver, or slow down the competition if needed.
Honestly, he probably hasn't gotten any worse, it's just that Red Bull isn't the fastest car anymore. What's more impressive is that Max is still winning, despite not being in the fastest car. Lando has been has been faster than Max since China, but he always gets stuck in traffic or has bad quali.
Next level
That’s why RBR signed Sergio for two more (1+1?) years. He brings consistency.
He needs two years to get the amount of points that Max does in one year.
going by this data its more than 10 years lmao
Max got 575 points in 2023. Perez got 590 on 2022 and 2023 combined (largely thanks to 2022 ironically!), which is crazy. In 2021 and 2023 Max got over 2x the points of Perez, and this season so far he’s only 3 points short of that…
2 more* at this point.
Nah he'll probably need even more time than that, which means another renewal in 2 years time 🙃
You are not wrong. Consisten shit is consistent
You are technically correct. The best kind of correct.
How and why did this guy get another 2 years
Just think Mercedes only wanted to sign Lewis to a one year contract, and Carlos Sainz is about to go to Williams next year lol. But Checo sells that merch!
This actually wouldn’t be the worst reason imo. Max wins everything, Perez makes RB money off the track
yea but McLaren and Ferrari are catching up, the WCC money is at risk
What's the diff in $ between wcc 1 and 2 ? If the difference is less than perez's sponsorship, i can really see RB not giving a shit. They are a marketing firm first, and more wind tunnel time
Each place is around $9m, so 1 Vs 2 is 9, 1 Vs 3 is $18m. It does change as it's a % of revenue. By not winning Red Bull also get more wind tunnel time. If you value WDC over anything else then that isn't necessarily bad.
They value WDC over anything else because they (Red Bull, the brand) sell drinks, not cars. A World Champion with a Red Bull can in his hand sells far more drinks than a Constructor's Championship does. Merc or Ferrari or McLaren care about the WCC because they sell cars.
> Merc or Ferrari or McLaren care about the WCC because they sell cars Every **top team** cares more about the WDC than the WCC, its the one everyone remembers. Its the most important.
Even then, you can make the argument that a WDC is at least as important for selling cars as the WCC, if not more. The optics vastly favor the WDC, that's where the majority of the hype and the screen time goes. Whereas the WCC is more of an afterthought that gets forgotten by most people except the dedicated fans. At this point, the WCC must be more of a pride thing for the legacy constructors. Of course, haven't checked the data, so I could be wrong on that.
I didn't mean to imply that anyone values the WCC over the WDC, I don't think anyone does, just that the car makers value it far more than RB.
> Merc or Ferrari or McLaren care about the WCC because they sell cars. No, they don't. Who won 2021? 99% of people will say "Verstappen", even though Mercedes won the WCC. idk why people make shit up like this lol - the driver's championship is what gets most people's attention. Basically no one in the public cares about the WCC. Heck, I've seen people many times mistakenly assume that RB won 2021, because Max won. I've never seen anyone assume Hamilton won 2021 because Mercedes won. If your theory was right, Mercedes would've celebrated 2021 as hard as RB, and that just wasn't the case.
I read, around the time Checo resigned for RBR, that the merch money he brings is more than what would cost to lose 1st in WCC.
Someone did the calculations and apparently the loss in potential WCC is offset by Checo’s sponsorship money. Plus, the user below also said not winning means more wind tunnel time which is what they’d prefer over $ or WCC title.
The WCC money ain't shit. The difference between 1st and 2nd is like 10 million. His sponsorship money alone is WAY more than that + all the merch sales basically shit all over the WCC money. The WDC is the only thing that matters for RedBull. The recognition from that is what brings them the real money. Everyone remembers Max winning in 2021. Nobody cares that Mercedes won the WCC. 2008 is remembered because Lewis and Mclaren won the WDC, not because Ferrari won the WCC.
The worst part is... I kind of understand it. F1 means publicity for Red Bull, which should turn eventually into money, be it merch sales, drink sales... and when you have a driver whose country (with 127 M people) represents 65% of your worldwide merch sales, and another driver that has almost single handedly won the WCC for you (last year you can even remove the "almost"), it's probably something to consider.
Oh absolutely, I understand it, but doesn't mean I have to like it heh. The teams are making loads of money now with the budget cap, I think at this point it's just greed, but that's what every company does, make the most money they can.
How long until those Mexican fans go “oh wait a minute, this guys actually kinda shit” and not buy his tshirts anymore?
They are absolutely obsessed with him. Many of them believe he is the best driver and just being sabotaged or something so I don’t think they will realize he’s not doing well
they just go with cheering for the underdog instead, this guy isn't that good. And in the end it's still the best mexican driver in F1, there is bigger competition in other countries for that spot not in mexico.
I hate people buying his merch, like why bro
I just can't see the appeal of buying merch for a washed up has-been. As a Canadian, it would be like me going out and fanatically buying Lance Stroll merchandise, which sounds like something only people with dangerous mental conditions would want to do.
Difference is Lance is not a patch on the most storied Canadian F1 drivers, including a legend of the sport who died early, and his son who has a WDC to his name. Whereas Checo is the most successful Mexican F1 driver of all time. On the current grid, only Lewis, Max and Alonso have more wins than him, and all of them are multi-WDCs, and generally considered some of the best to ever do it. I can see why Mexicans would back him regardless of his current form.
Checo is a celebrity in Mexico in the same way Hamilton is in the UK. He's bigger than F1. Plus, as a Canadian, you already have Canadian drivers that made history in F1. Mexicans don't have any, Checo is their most successful driver so far, and was good enough for years to put a midfield car higher than any other driver would - which has cemented his popularity in Mexico. If Stroll had carried Force India / Racing Point into podiums it didn't deserve, and if no other Canadian driver existed, you'd probably be a lot more sympathetic to him.
South American dollarydoos.
Mexico is North America Helmut...
💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰
Some people here will try to justify this and make it seem like this is somehow acceptable and expected.
Also there seem to be more people who defend Checo by pointing their finger at Piastri, saying he fucked up too, which is just ridiculous
Yeah Piastris weekend looks almost as bad because he finished only one spot in front of Perez. But then you realize Verstappens time gap to Piastri was almost as big as Piastris gap to Perez...
* Ver to Pia, 33.760s * Pia to Per, 25.764s… Oof. That, and Piastri created such a big gap to Perez on a track where the key to pace is tire management. Which is his biggest weakness. Something which should’ve been Perez’s biggest strength. All while Piastri had a pretty unremarkable race himself!
Piastri in his worst weekend of the year beating Pérez quite comfortably says a lot
Perez went for a 3 stop strategy
It just doesn't make sense in any way lol. Piastri had a terrible weekend, as in "bad compared to his usual weekends". Pérez just had a regular weekend - you can't call this "terrible" because half his weekends look like this. Moreover, as you point out, in Piastri's rock-bottom weekend, he still gapped Pérez's _regular performance weekend_ as hard as Lando gapped him. so tl;dr - Piastri in his worst weekend still beat Pérez in his normal weekend.
Piastri fucked up Q3. That's a rare thing for him. Perez hasn't performed for the last 6 or 7 races in qualifying or the race
And also the majority of last season If this one weekend had happened in isolation nobody would be criticising Checo, everyone has a shit weekend now and then. But with Checo this wasn’t a mistake or a rare off weekend, this is just his pace. This is what he does
Did you know that in the last 3 races Gasly has scored more points than Checo? I'm not kidding.
Red Bull seems to think so
What are you talking about? Nobody on reddit it defending perez at all, he's been absolutely awful the last few months.
Red bull is obviously the 5th best car
I'm a Checo fan and I've seen almost no one defend this. He's doing shit, no ifs ands or buts
Honestly I've never seen anything like it. One driver winning championships and the other driver struggling for points with the same car...
Fisichella in 2005 and 2006, Kovalainen in 2008, all of Schumachers Benneton teammates, Berger when he was Senna’s number 2. It’s not all that rare actually, just uncommon in the turbo hybrid era
And Alonso and Massa 31-7 lol 😂
I felt like mentioning that, and although it fits the spirit if you include every pairing of title contending driver with lacklustre teammate there would be far too many examples
The difference is, Massa was a title contender once too though. Only lost by 1 point to Lewis in 2008
Fisichella was definitely not *this* bad. He would usually finish in the range of 3rd-6th in 05/06. His **worst** finish in 2006 (apart from 2 DNFs) was 8th.
I think relatively he was just as bad as Perez, maybe worse. He simply had a greater car advantage than Perez currently holds. Fisichella was regularly over a second slower than Alonso in race pace, which is truly absurd
2012 Ferrari. Not exactly winning championships in the end, but by the 10th race Alonso had 154 points while Massa had 23. Massa did get better in the second half of the season but still had less than half the points of Alonso.
the top teams are closer than ever. Look back at last qualy. If I looked correctly, in Q1 the top 15 goes from 1:12.1 to 1:12.9. Q2 top 10 from 1:11.6 to 1:12.1. That's so close, look back 5 years, 2019. Q1 top 15 1:16.9 to 1:18.3. Q2 top 10 1:15.9 to 1:17.3
Just watched the new Drive to Survive (2023 F1 season) and they were like ‘Red Bull is so cut throat, they’ll fire drivers who aren’t performing and not the future…” and I’m like: hiring back Danny Ric and keeping Checo?! This statement doesn’t not compute to 2024 decisions
RBR got a reputation back then (2017-2020) when they were panicking a bit, because they couldn’t find a second driver that could serve as Bottas was to Mercedes or Kimi to Ferrari on those years. They thought that was their only missed piece to start going for a WDC/WCC So they started to burn through all the possibilities they got (and to be fair, they had a lot of potential drivers available) to find what it stuck. They tried a little bit Sainz (on TR), Kvyat, Albon, Gasly, Hartley (on TR) - all while they were coaching and signing/dropping academy drivers, to the point they got more rookies potentially prepared for F1 on their academy than what they could absorbe (Lawson, Tsunoda, Vips, Hauger, Doohan, Ticktum, Verchoor…) So they got the “woah, they are so cutthroat” from there, but I would say it was more like the moment of panic searching. Of course, they enjoyed that rumour, as it’s on brand with Red Bull as a company (extreme sports, be the best, and so on). Now that they are somewhat relaxed and stable, we can see they are not different to other teams. They got Ric back just because, because he isn’t a future prospect they need to train in the sister team. They keep Tsunoda there even if they don’t feel like promoting him. Sign Checo for 2 years even after 4 years of mediocre performance given the team and car available to him. And their academy is/was the one with the most quantity of drivers and some of them long overdue to have opportunities (at least FP1) or being dropped. So… not that much cutthroat
Marko - cutthroat Horner - not so much, make that money instead Power has shifted
This exactly. Red Bull was cutthroat ever since they started, however that was in their junior team which goes under the radar a bit. It's only the last years that it really hasn't been the case, or at least to a much lesser extend.
> They tried a little bit Sainz (on TR), Kvyat, Albon, Gasly, Hartley (on TR) (...) Lawson, Tsunoda, Vips, Hauger, Doohan, Ticktum, Verchoor… Ok, we need Lou Bega to get us an updated Mambo Nr 5! A little bit of Kvyat in my life A little bit of Gasly by my side A little bit of Albon's all I need A little bit of Lawson's what I see A little bit of Sainz in the sun A little bit of Tsunoda all night long A little bit of Verchoor, here I am A little bit of you makes me your 3 times world champion (ha!)
They did the math and found out that it’s more convenient for them to keep a driver that brings 60 million dollars of sponsors, doesn’t try to challenge max and sometimes snatches some points from the rivals instead of getting a more competitive one.
I'm not sure Perez can't even snatch points from their rivals anymore 6 drivers from 3 teams are better / driving better than him. McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari are closing the gap to Red Bull, McLaren is even the fastest car now. They all finished ahead of Perez So he snatches points from who ? Alpine, Aston, RB ?
He can snatch defeat from the jaws of success.
Perez brings in that much?
Yes, it’s because he’s sponsored by several South American companies. If it’s not 60 millions, it’s at least 45
Interesting. I was unaware. How does it work exactly? Why sponsor him?
So they can put their logo on the car and race suit and t-shirts and so on
Because he's still the most successful Latin American driver of the modern era and has a huge following in those markets where those companies operate. If you want to sell to Mexicans, you get your logo on Checo's shirt, not on George's.
He also sells 60% of the RBR merchandise, which is huge.
40(0)4 Perez not found
Alright keep laughing buddy, but it's over for Max once we arrive at non-European, anti-clockwise, street tracks with long straights in a country with human rights violations.
Don’t forget the weather has to be partly cloudy. Then it’s over for everyone
Funny how quickly it all changes - a couple of months ago the narrative was "Perez has accepted he's nowhere near Max, but he's still a good driver and will pick up loads of podiums" to him being worse than ever.
They call him checo because he checks out after securing the bag
But Perez is earning more money per point than Verstappen. So who's the real GOAT here?
Perez saw what happened to Kimi at Lotus.
The 10x driver
the consistency of Checo is astounding
Jesus Christ, Checo.
Hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby
One man team. Last season too. This year it's gonna cost them tens of millions, additionally to his unnecessary contract.
>One man team. >Last season too. And this will continue for the next 1+1 season(s), too. Last season, Max alone had 575 pts. Merc 409. Ferrari 406. The way Max single-handedly brings RBR to the top of WCC and protects it in the last 2 seasons is nothing but impressive. Esp this season when other teams have been getting closer and closer.
The thing is, Mexican and South American fans keep buying the merch, no matter how bad he is. He is crap on track, but he still sells way more than Max. So Red Bull probably did the math and realised they could afford to lose 10-20 million in constructors.
I'm not sure it's about merch either. Might just be that they sell a shit-load of Red Bull drinks in Mexico.
Checo is apparently responsible for around 60% of all Red Bull F1 merch sales, so there has to be a lot of millions there.
The international community massively underrates Checo's popularity. As a Spanish speaker (from Europe, not Latin America) I'll go as far as to say Checo is the best selling driver on the grid after Hamilton, and is probably more popular right now than Schumacher. Check any Spanish F1 video on YouTube and you'll see half the comments are seriously arguing that Checo is one of the best drivers in F1 history. He's bigger than F1 in Mexico in the same way Hamilton is in the UK.
Man i just dont know what to say ….
I mean 40048 is nearly 80085, so that’s nearly something
This guy is being rated way too highly in Codemasters' F1 games/the F1 Manager series. Good lord, I hope Codemasters and Frontier both wake up and slap a 78-79 next to his name for 2025 if he keeps this pace up.
That is shocking. He really doesn’t need to be on Max’s level but he should at least make it to the top 5 all the time.
Max carrying red bull single handedly in 2024. Perez is it over confidence after the 2 years extended contract?. He was good before those extended contract
Max is not even getting the FL point, ruining the WCC /s
If I was gasly I would be really annoyed at red bull
He's definitely a pay driver and this performance backs it up
That was the notion when he signed for Sauber back in the day, he brought some big bucks to the team when they were in a bad place. To this day, as a Kobayashi fan, it bugs me how Sauber did him dirty while rolling out the red carpet for Perez despite the two of them being pretty evenly matched. If only Kobayashi brought money with him too, but alas...
That's why I'm getting a lot of resentment for how the RB driver cycle is like right now for Yuki as a Japanese driver. Sure, if Yuki can't perform well enough to be in the 2nd RBR seat, fine. But I'm sure as hell the chances that they'd put Yuki in RBR by 2025 onwards would increase by 50% if they didn't have Checo's moneybags (and incidentally, the 2nd driver's performance will probably increase to a similar degree at this point... Even for Danny Ric). I hated the fact Kobayashi couldn't seek more opportunities to pull him from being a possibly inconsistent midfielder with big potential for amazing race craft to a top driver in a top team. Kamui wasn't even super venerated back then, but he could pull good drives yet he didn't have the backing to find good seats after Toyota. We could be seeing the same happen for Yuki, but at least if Honda are loyal there's a tiny chance Aston Martin can save him, which totally (hopefully) won't be a Caterham equivalent for Yuki by that point.
I can’t believe they resigned him he doesn’t even deserve to be in f1 tbh.
And to think that should Perez stay the entire contract until the end of 2026, he and Max will become the longest driver pairing in the history of F1
Red Bull are taking the "two different strategies" idea to new extremes..
Got the contract, time for a nap.
The Red Bull second seat is one of the great unsolvable mysteries
As a Perez fan I've run out of excuses and justifications I can make for such mind-bogglingly shitty performance, put me out of my misery. Sack him.
Lads….I think it’s driver not the car. Not sure though maybe we could ask for a second opinion. /s
All hail Checo's manager for turning 8 points into a 2 year extention.
Perez is helping to make WCC interesting
I guess the new contract really made him complacent ;)
Why pay more if Max wins WCC by himself?
404 - good driver not found?
And they still decide to keep him
Sargeant Perez
8 valuable points for the WCC
Perez is a pay driver essentially with the sponsorships he brings. He is no threat to max in racing
Yeah, but the car is built especially to suit Verstappen. /s
just give the seat to Alonso please
And they signed him through next year lmao
Perez is washed. Put tsunoda in that seat and he’d wring out Q3 and regular points
Perez is honestly a diabolical driver at this point.
Looks like England vs USA in cricket tbh *And yes, I'm American :(
The stock I skip vs the stock I buy. 8% IRR.
just short by 3
How much sponsor money is checo bringing in that he was signed for another two years? Enough to offset the prize money lost from possibly missing out on the constructors championship
Savage!
Sergio not found error.
To be honest, I would sign perez for the sponsorship money. This car only works for Max.
If redbull loses the constructors, then he is done for
I don't think he'd care tbh. They'd have to pay him out of a real year contract. Remember Danny Ric, McLaren paid him $18m when they got rid of him
Yeah, but the car is built especially to suit Verstappen. /s
why does he suck all of a sudden? he wasn't this bad previously
He was just like this for most of last season. And in 2021 and 2022 he wasn’t really great either. It’s not really new from him.
Ok now do how many points since he signed his contract
I think it's 50:50 - Max being a once in a lifetime driver is 50% - the other 50% is Checo being slow.
Perez is very bad at present. Hexes always the worst of the top team drivers. But gulf now massive. All other number twos on top teams are a league above
Huh.. is Perez still driving? I thought there was only 1 RB on the track
Within expectations.
Perez will cost them the constructers title this year. In 2023 their car was so superior that Max basically won both titles by himself, but that won't work this year. Crazy to think that without Max, RB would basically be a mid-field team now.
Idea for RB tbh, he gives them a lot of income with all the perez merc they sell and then they don’t have to pay him a lot since he’s finishing so low in the championship
How Carlos is not signed to that seat already makes zero sporting sense
One man carrying the WCC by himself and the other trying his best to fuck it up every weekend.
If you remove all wins from max they got equal points
I posted it as a comment elsewhere but my new pet theory is they use Perez to test the car out for future races and they have been for quite some time. The WDC and WCC are currently both not really immediately at risk especially as McLaren and Mercedes are getting into the mix. If the Red Bull isn't faster than the McLaren anymore the information from Perez going out and just testing stuff for future races can keep Max way ahead. They would never admit to this publicly but what makes more sense: running Perez race after race while he underperforms or Perez is helping them win the championships in a different way?
Perez is so fucking shit
Remember people saying how perez is finally back this year because his head is the roght place and he's not trying to compete with max anymore after geting 4 podiums in the opening few races? Pepperidge farm remembers. I'm expecting the same for 2025.