Rob Dylan wrote: ↑19 Dec 2024, 10:25
Strange how this rolled out nearly a week ago on Finnish and German media, but took Auto/Motorsport (a.k.a. the ones we actually trust) until the end of last night to officially confirm it. The gap between "confirmed rumours" and "confirmed" was strangely long for this story.
Lawson must be absolutely terrified at the shoes he's going to step into.
I have no idea why none of the alternatives were chosen, either. Tsunoda at least would be
consistently mediocre if he were unable to cope in top-flight machinery against the front-line competition. Some hired hand for a year like Bottas or Magnussen would be also more than capable of doing a 7 out of 10 job if Red Bull really don't want to promote either of their drivers. Picking Lawson for the job just seems like straight-up cruelty.
I can only assume that other old hired hands like Bottas would only take multi-year contracts, while Red Bull are ignoring the old adage of beggars and choosing. Again, picking Lawson seems like unnecessary cruelty considering the team just won the drivers' championship again and surely have a whole line of others begging to be Verstappen's teammate.
I wonder if part of it might have been because Perez's father had been attacking those he called "lying journalists" if they posted stories that suggested Sergio was going to be replaced with Lawson, and talking about publishing names of "lying journalists and lying media" on his social media channels.
Several journalists have reported that, if they published stories in the past suggesting Red Bull were considering replacing Perez, they were getting considerable harassment and abuse directed at them, and it seems that Antonio Perez's behaviour has fanned the flames. I wouldn't be surprised if some journalists might have chosen to hold back on that story rather than face the threat of abusive behaviour, and that perhaps those in the Finnish and German press could get away with publishing those sorts of articles because they were probably less well known and less likely to attract hostile attention.
With regards to your questions about what Bottas or Magnussen might have wanted - given that Bottas did explicitly state that he had asked Sauber for a multi-year deal, he probably would have wanted something similar from Red Bull if they did ever approach him. Similarly, Magnussen does seem to have generally asked for multi-year deals when negotiating terms with Haas in the past, so it's possible that he might have also wanted a multi-year deal.
That said, I don't think that those alone would have necessarily been completely deal breaking by themselves. Part of it may have been that both drivers are in the tail end of their careers - having been around for around a decade each and both being in their early to mid 30s - but, and this is probably one of the bigger drivers, there is probably the political element around choosing those drivers.
Given that much of the rationale for having the junior team is that it's meant to feed drivers to their parent team, there is probably a need for both Horner and Marko to justify the existence of that team and the junior driver programme by promoting it's drivers. In recent years, they've already somewhat weakened the rationale for Red Bull's Junior Team - several drivers were only added to it when they were already hired from elsewhere, and we've had Perez come into Red Bull when he had no former association with that organisation.
To some extent, whilst Tsunoda is driving for the junior team, he's potentially not viewed as being a proper Red Bull driver - his position at the team, rightly or wrongly, is largely put down to pressure from Honda, and there does always seem to have been a little bit of resentment that his choice was somewhat forced onto them.
Lawson, in that respect, is a driver that has come through Red Bull's programme, been embedded within the organisation for several years and comes to the team with no ties to any other organisation or former team. He's effectively their driver to mould as they please and can be shaped to provide whatever profile they want to give him in the media, and also shaped much more easily to whatever role he needs to fulfil within the team than a more experienced driver that may expect more independence.
Furthermore, and being a bit more cynical, as a driver whose future career is far more dependent on future patronage from Red Bull, Lawson is perhaps in a position where Red Bull does have more leverage over him and can therefore bend him to their will.
Magnussen and Bottas are in a position where it probably mattered less to them whether they stayed on the grid in 2025, and probably know that they're in a position where they would likely also receive offers from elsewhere fairly easily, or would also be in a position to probably retire fairly comfortably. Magnussen, after all, is heading over to BMW's LMDh programme for 2025, whilst Bottas is heading back to Mercedes as a third driver and seems to be content with that.
eventually if they all resign, we're going to run out - that is, unless Daniel Ricciardo or a cameoing Bernie Ecclestone are in the paddock and they want to give it a go.
