Perez to Redbull, Albon becomes reserve driver

The pace in the RB is simply too low to threaten the Mercedes in either championship. Red Bull's media tactics masterfully puts all eyes on the #2 driver seat, but they have problems which much extend beyond that. Even with a clone of Max Verstappen, they would not beat Mercedes in the WCC, and probably not WDC either. The high-rake aerodynamic design is extended to the limit (still being slower than Mercedes), they have no engine option for the future and have been consistently beat for the past 7 years. Not sure if the fizzy drinks wallet will cover for another couple of years of not having a shot at a title?

But yeah, go Perez! Hope you can survive the snake pit for a year to land a decent contract for 2022!

 

Joe Saward believes he already has a 2022 deal with Williams and Perez himself has alluded to a deal being in place

 

Agree'd I was being polite about Albon. He was simply not that good or consistent. Lacked confidence overall it appears.

 

Very true. In the case of a one-tear contract, no side has much to lose.

Perez will keep his hands in the game, and RB won't have time to become impatient if it doesn't work out.

But I cannot see Perez staying for the long run. Apart from Max, drivers are disposable at RB.

 

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It’s official now!

 

Yup. Cool. Mexico will be happy, guarantees a sold out stadium next year.

 

I wonder how attractive Perez would have been in the deal if he was not saddled with those millions of dollars of sponsorship money that comes with the deal?

Where are all of the cries of 'it should be about talent and not money'

Of course I say this tongue in cheek as Perez is a good and talented driver but let's not forget that he continues to be a 'pay driver' and there are associations attached to that reality.

 

Absolutely true.

To paraphrase you: His telephony $ is one of his talents.

 

Another irony of sorts is that Perez lost his seat when Stroll Sr. bought both Racing Point and Aston Martin leading to cries of unfair because Stroll's money was bullying him out.

Now Perez is going to Red Bull who welcome HIS money that will do nicely to replace the Aston Martin money they will be loosing. Am I the only one seeing the double standard here

 

Nice catch.

Didn't think about it. Then again to me it is utterly irrelevant whether a driver is a pay driver or not. Reality is that basically every driver is a pay driver in the sense that they bring their personal sponsors to the team. The rest is in the details of contracts we don't get to see anyway. On top of that there are other considerations for why one driver is more interesting than another (unrelated to their actual talent), things like marketability and country of origin.

 

There was an article in Motosport, I think, saying that the amount of sponsorship Perez brings with him was grossly exagerated.
If I remember rightly, it would be about $5m, but Perez salary is taken out of that, and it's already around $2.5m !

 

Truth. RedBull are not pay driver needing Haas by any implication of this. They do not have a driver they like to set with Max at all. Their system has not produced another Ricci.

 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/154291/perez-form-made-him-impossible-for-red-bull-to-ignore

Red Bull says that Sergio Perez's impressive performances in Formula 1 this season made it "impossible" to turn down the chance to sign him.

The Milton Keynes-based team announced on Friday it had signed Perez for 2021 as a replacement for Alex Albon, who is being moved into a development and test role.

While Red Bull team boss Christian Horner admitted that making the choice to not continue with Albon was tough from an emotional perspective, he said that Perez's strong pace simply could not be overlooked.

"The decision has been an incredibly hard one," said Horner, when asked by Autosport about the reasons behind the decision to go for Perez.

"I think all of us wanted to see Alex succeed. What we said was that we would give Alex the season, and not make any decisions before, to have a complete set of data. And that's obviously what we did.

"But when you look at the data, and you look at the ratio between the two drivers, it was a decision that was obviously very much driven by that. It was just impossible to ignore Sergio's performance in the Racing Point over the course of the year, and particularly, in the second half the season.

Horner thinks that Perez will have no problem stepping up to the demands of a big team like Red Bull, and believes he is vastly more experienced than he was when he endured a troubled time at McLaren in 2013.

"He's a very rounded driver now and I think he has an uncanny ability to over deliver in machinery he has had available to him," added Horner.

"If you look at the amount of podiums and success that he's had over the over the years, I think he'll be a good addition to the team. I think it shows again, our determination to field a competitive team against Mercedes next year."

 

About damn time.

 

IMHO best possible result for RB next year is to compete for the constructor's title - LH will not be challenged for the driver's title, he's not that bad to let it go while driving the best car. However if Bottas is still hopeless and RB finally has two good drivers, RB may fight for the championship...

 

I definitely see a few wins for the team next year and several double podiums. Bottas, like Vettel, has really dropped the ball as of late, so having two strong drivers to take advantage of that will really help the team in the constructors championship.

 

Would be nice but I think it'll remain wishful thinking.

 

I think he means Constructors Championship which is very reasonable

 

Nice assessments by different F1 writers and formerly involved people on the new deal for Perez.

https://the-race.com/formula-1/our-verdict-on-red-bull-dropping-albon-and-signing-perez/

 

I bet Perez hasn't stop smiling yet, good for him.

 

Happy for Perez...he really earned it this year. He is mature, he is professional, and he might even boost RB beverage sales in Latin America. If Max is smart, he will be happy to have that good a driver as a team mate. Makes me think of the Andretti/Peterson and Hawthorn/Collins teams.

 

And Perez got the extra $10M...

 

Hmmm, I hope Williams takes a jump with the 2022 regulations for the sake of him, otherwise it is going to be a big cliff between RB and Willaims.

 

It will be interesting if there will be fireworks at RBR with SP and MV? I wonder if a primary reason to keep Albon in reserve is if SP does not perform (unlikely) or if the combo becomes hamiliton/rossberg or hamilton/alonso toxic? I bet the threat of jetisoning SP will keep him in line. MV is the golden boy. Albon would have stayed if he had performances like he did in Abu D. He just needed to spoil Merc's strategy. If SP gets close to taking out MV he will be gone.