Red Bull needs a return to its ruthless ways to solve the 'Sergio Perez' problem

It's hard to find a better way to say this but Sergio Perez has become a liability for Red Bull. In all fairness, the fault for this lies with the team itself, because slowly but steadily, a team that was ruthless, ambitious, and a risk-taker in every which way, has now become risk-averse.

Red Bull first made an entry into F1 as a team in 2005. There was something that stood out about this team at the time. A young outfit run by a fresh-faced 30-something Christian Horner, who was younger than one of his drivers. It was brash, an outlaw, and most of all, not scared of trying something outlandish.

It was this brashness that saw this team put Sebastian Vettel in the car and win the first title in 2010. It was this aggression that saw Max Verstappen being given a chance with the team as a teenager and the outcome is clearly visible.

During this 20-year stint in F1, Red Bull has not been this conservative as it is right now. Signing Sergio Perez in 2021 was a bold move. He was a driver who was a strong midfielder and could be a brilliant racer. His selection proved to be an inspired choice, as he got the job done for the team during the 2021 title battle.

In 2024, however, Sergio Perez is not an inspired choice. On the contrary, it is a weak choice of a team trying to calm the waters, as there has already been far too much turbulence. It would have seemed sensible at first, but looking at the trajectory, Red Bull is going to lose the constructors title this season unless Perez starts performing.

The car cannot all of a sudden stretch the gap to the rest of the field, and Max Verstappen can only do so much. With the fear of not rocking the boat too much, Red Bull has found itself in this situation. To get out of this, the team has to get back to its old ruthless self, where risks are taken and calls are made without being too worried about ruffling some feathers.

To solve the Sergio Perez problem, Red Bull needs to poach Nico Hulkenberg from Audi/Sauber for 2025 and at the same time prepare the future pipeline at RB.

Why replace Sergio Perez with Nico Hulkenberg?

To answer this, it's safe to say that Sergio Perez first does not deserve a seat at Red Bull anymore. We're almost halfway into the season and we're yet to have a race where the Mexican has beaten his teammate. He's been consistently slower, and even if we extrapolate this to the last three and half years, the story remains unchanged.

Sergio Perez has not only provided no competition to Max Verstappen, he's not even a competition to any driver in the top 4 teams. When the season began, Perez was second in the championship and had two P2 finishes in the first two races.

While he did get another one in Japan and was P3 in China, the driver's season fell off the wagon in Miami. That was the time when the competition caught up to Red Bull, and from that moment his form has been horrible.

A shocking statistic that worsens Sergio Perez's case is that since the race in Miami, the Mexican has scored 15 points. Do you know what makes it worse? Nico Hulkenberg driving a Haas has outscored Perez during this time (16 points).

This is where we come to the second part of the argument, where we back Nico Hulkenberg to be the driver that replaces Sergio Perez. When it comes to picking a teammate for Max Verstappen, there are a few things to keep in mind.

The first is that the driver needs to be fast, professional in how he conducts himself and should have experience in F1 to help with car development alongside Max. Furthermore, the driver needs to be willing to give up some rights that tend to be for the lead driver, and most importantly, he needs to be a team player.

On the current grid, except Nico Hulkenberg, who has been in scintillating form ever since he stepped back into an F1 car, no other driver fits the description. Daniel Ricciardo's return has been a disaster, Yuki Tsunoda is someone who just doesn't get the nod, Esteban Ocon is someone that Red Bull might consider a headache, same goes for Carlos Sainz, and finally, Valtteri Bottas has not shown anything to warrant that seat.

The next step is poaching Nico Hulkenberg from Audi and possibly from Haas for 2024 as well. That's where the ruthlessness of the Red Bull of old comes into play. It would entail either the team and the driver finding an exit clause in the contract or the squad just buying out his contract altogether.

With driver contracts excluded from the budget cap, this is something that is definitely on the table and if Red Bull is back at its ruthless best, if the team wants it, securing Nico Hulkenberg's services is definitely possible.

Why not Liam Lawson?

This does however raise the question about why don't the team just give Liam Lawson the shot at Red Bull and see what he can do in the car. Well, the reason behind it could be what happened with Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly having Max Verstappen as teammate. The two drivers could never get themselves out of that hold and ended up being booted from the team.

It's not because the two drivers were not good enough. Ever since they've left Red Bull they've shown they are pretty good. They were just young, inexperienced, and didn't know how to deal with the fact that they were getting mauled by their teammate every weekend. This led to an increase in pressure on these drivers and hence we saw far too many mistakes.

Max Verstappen has only gotten better and more lethal since then, and Red Bull runs a serious risk of ruining Liam Lawson's career before it begins.

The long-term plan (Life after Sergio Perez)

It's safe to say that having Nico Hulkenberg on the team right now is a plan for the short term. The German can give two strong years to Red Bull, enough time for the team to search for an alternative teammate.

That's where options come into the picture. Liam Lawson can be groomed at RB, and Oscar Piastri can be targeted to do a job similar to what he's doing at McLaren right now. Not only this, the Red Bull prospect Arvid Lindblad has turned heads in F3, and if he turns out to be something impressive, he can be promoted to F1 and groomed for a role that Sergio Perez has.

Having a Max Verstappen-Sergio Perez lineup in 2024 doesn't make sense anymore. Red Bull needs firm and efficient steps and that's what the team needs to recognise at this stage. A ruthless, cold-hearted, and aggressive nature was what Red Bull was identified with in the past. It's about time it went back to it.