In the news that everyone was thinking about, Mercedes announced Thursday morning that Valtteri Bottas would be returning to the team as its reserve driver. Bottas spent the past three years as an unfortunate, i.e. racing for Alfa Romeo–turned–Kick Sauber, but up until 2021, Bottas had represented everything a championship-winning team needed in a second driver: fast enough to ensure 1-2 finishes, good enough in qualifying to occasionally beat Lewis Hamilton, not quite good enough to disrupt a clear 1-2 hierarchy. The full circle continues what has been considered one of the kinder arcs for a second driver post-eviction: freed from the pressure of one-year contracts and matching up against literally Lewis Hamilton, Bottas grew a mullet and a mustache, posted ass, then managed to return to Mercedes with zero expectations.
If Sergio Pérez does half that, he will be fortunate. Red Bull announced on Wednesday that Pérez would be leaving the team after three seasons. He is already missing out on the clean end-of-term-into-multi-year-contract-with-another-team sequence that Bottas got. Lest anyone forgets, Pérez's contract was initially due to expire at the end of the 2024 season, but six months ago, Red Bull Racing announced that they had extended his contract by two years. This was a baffling decision at face value, but could be explained by the disaster of Red Bull leadership, McLaren evading consideration as legitimate Constructors' Championship contender, Daniel Ricciardo still being in the second VCARB seat, and Pérez having a far worse second half of the season compared to his first—he had four podiums prior to the extension, and zero after. In the end, Red Bull had to worm its way out of an easily avoidable extension, and took a no-doubt expensive route to an inevitable result: Sergio Pérez lasted for longer than expected, but he, too, fell victim to the curse of the second Red Bull seat.
The real question was who would replace Pérez. Being Max Verstappen's second driver is the worst job that near everyone on the grid would love to have. For a while, the primary candidates thrown about were Liam Lawson, Yuki Tsunoda, Carlos Sainz Jr., and, with baffling prominence, Daniel Ricciardo. After Ricciardo's ignominious VCARB exit and Sainz's signing with the James Vowles–led Williams, the choices were down to Lawson and Tsunoda. No sense being coy about it: Despite Tsunoda reportedly impressing while conducting an end-of-season test for Red Bull, Red Bull announced that Lawson would be Pérez's replacement.
Red Bull clearly believes that Lawson's ceiling as a driver is higher than Tsunoda's, in spite of their head-to-head record in equal machinery. (When Tsunoda first started out in F1, he was routinely trounced by his teammate, Pierre Gasly.) Rather than pointing to records, Red Bull honcho Christian Horner focused on Lawson's history racing wheel-to-wheel when explaining the apparently difficult decision: "You put him into a situation, he gets on with it. If you remember his debut in Zandvoort after Daniel broke his fingers, he was racing against Max on his out lap." Considering that Lawson had gotten a seat in VCARB and then immediately pissed off both Pérez and Fernando Alonso, "getting on with it" is, at least, an apt descriptor of Lawson's verve.
But if this is true, Red Bull's handling of its definitely-not-a-second-team VCARB operation remains baffling: Why keep Ricciardo in the VCARB seat over Lawson? Why keep Tsunoda in the VCARB seat over Lawson? Why keep Tsunoda in the VCARB seat at all?
Perhaps the first two questions are useless in retrospect, but the third question can still be answered. The past few years have trained spectators to treat every single Red Bull second seat move with trepidation. If Lawson breaks the mold and becomes the solution that Red Bull have been waiting for these past two years, then team leadership will be happily kicking themselves for wasted time on Pérez and Ricciardo. Should Lawson not live up to expectations, or lose as roundly on pace to Verstappen as many of his peers had ... well. As Alexander Albon and Tsunoda's buddy Pierre Gasly can attest to, Tsunoda may get his chance yet.
