Daniel Ricciardo could know his Formula 1 fate as soon as next month, with Red Bull setting a September deadline to decide its 2025 driver line-up, according to motorsport adviser Helmut Marko.
The four-driver line-up across Red Bull Racing and RB has been the source of considerable intrigue in recent months. While Daniel Ricciardo at the junior team is the only driver in the stable without a contract for 2025, Sergio Pérez’s dire form at RBR has put his position in doubt despite having recently re-signed for at least another season.
Red Bull Racing was believed to have been poised to replace him following his lacklustre second-to-seventh performance at the Belgian Grand Prix, with Ricciardo thought to be in line for the drive, but a change of heart in the 24 hours following the race earnt the Mexican a stay of execution, keeping both him and the Australian in their seats for the foreseeable future.
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But the status-quo announcement has gridlocked the broader Red Bull program, with reserve driver Liam Lawson having been in line to replace Ricciardo at RB had Pérez been axed.
It leaves Lawson’s prospective full-time debut as a considerable and potentially defining question for 2025.
Though the Kiwi is believed to have an escape clause in his contract that makes him a free agent if he isn’t offered a full-time deal in September, there is no clear alternative team for him to switch to next season, with most other constructors either already subscribed or heavily tipped to have promised seats to other drivers.
Some have speculated Red Bull could use Lawson’s unenviable position to keep him under contract but still on the sidelines for another season.
But speaking to ESPN, Marko said Lawson’s future — and by extension the composition of Red Bull’s 2025 line-up — was set to be decided next month and hinted that the 22-year-old could finally get the nod.
“It’s a tough time for someone like Liam, especially as he jumped into the car under very, very difficult circumstances and did very well,” he said.
“We rate him high, and he will get his chance.
“Just wait. September you will have an answer.”
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The deadline also sets the clock ticking on Ricciardo’s Formula 1 future.
Assuming Pérez remains in place, promoting Lawson would likely come at Ricciardo’s expense, with Marko suggesting RB is set to return to its original purpose of blooding youngsters, a picture into which the 35-year-old Australian veteran of more than 250 grands prix would not obviously fit.
“It was a clear statement from the shareholders that Racing Bulls [RB] is a junior team, and this route will be how the future will look,” he said of Red Bull’s mid-season strategy meeting on the Monday after the Belgian Grand Prix.
But RB CEO Peter Bayer cast doubt on that presumed outcome, suggesting that retaining Ricciardo in the team could still fit the brief if it were in the interests of Yuki Tsunoda’s ongoing development as the brand’s most advanced junior driver.
“Helmut said it himself, in German you say a swallow doesn’t make a summer,” Bayer told Autosport. “What it means is that if Yuki keeps racing on this level consistently, he will be considered for a seat in Red Bull Racing.
“That’s ultimately exactly our mission and the mission we’ve been given by the shareholders, and if that means that he needs another season next to a very strong Daniel, that could be an option.”
Bayer also suggested that Tsunoda’s improving form could yet see him get the long-awaited but perpetually denied nod to join Red Bull Racing in Pérez’s place in 2025.
“It could also be an option [to] say that, ‘Okay, we now believe he’s ready’. So [then] we’ll talk to Liam [Lawson].”
Bayer’s comments appear to hint at the ongoing uncertainty surrounding Pérez’s tenure at Red Bull Racing.
A September deadline tallies not only with Lawson’s escape clause but also speculation that Pérez’s stay of execution is for only four races, taking him to the Singapore Grand Prix on 22 September, after which the sport adjourns for another three-weekend break before the Americas leg of the campaign.
Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner stopped short of guaranteeing Pérez’s place to the end of the year in his post-Belgium address to the factory, saying only that he and the team would “look forward to seeing him perform at tracks he has previously excelled at after the summer break”.
The four races after the summer break include Italy, where Pérez is a multiple podium-getter; Azerbaijan, where he’s a multiple winner; and Singapore, where he won in 2022.
The added time would also give Ricciardo more races to further embellish his small but growing advantage over Tsunoda to make himself a more compelling option to replace the Mexican, something Marko said he hadn’t achieved this year “so far”.
“If he would have been significantly faster than Yuki, there was an idea to bring him back to Red Bull Racing,” he said. “But he also had this up and down [form].
“So far he didn’t fulfil the criteria to be a Red Bull Racing driver.”
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Expanding on Red Bull Racing’s rationale for retaining Pérez despite his diabolic form in recent months, Marko said there was a belief inside the team that more could be done to make the Mexican more comfortable in the RB20.
“We believe that we can turn it round and make it more stable for him,” he said. “To be teammate to Max is not the nicest thing in Formula 1.
“Checo has his merits. He’s won races.
“Our [post-Belgium] discussion was not just about drivers; it was regular discussions we had of: what can we do to improve the situation? We have to try to make the car more easy to drive.
“The more difficult the car is to drive, the more the difference to Max [Verstappen] comes out because he’s such an outstanding talent.
“If the rear steps out, he won’t lift the throttle; he’s just, ‘Yeah, it’s a little bit nervous’. Checo says ‘It’s difficult’ or ‘its undrivable’.
“To be next to Max is a different story. So we said, ‘Let’s try to make the car more easy to drive, get more balance’, which is also something Max wants, and the best thing is to keep going with Checo.
“The main problem was this up and down.
“He had some very good results, very good performances, then the next day he was half a second off Max or so.”
Reports suggest Red Bull Racing is weighing up the extraordinary option of rolling back upgrades on Pérez’s car to return it the specification raced in the Chinese Grand Prix in April, Shanghai having been the last event at which he looked like a reasonable match for Verstappen.
Pérez qualified second and 0.322 seconds behind the Dutchman and finished the race third after being double stacked behind a safety car.
The Mexican finished second to Verstappen in three of the opening four races before China, encouraging Red Bull Racing to reward him with a surprisingly early new deal for 2025, which was announced ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix in June.
But by then Pérez’s form had already begun a dramatic spiral from which he’s yet to show any meaningful recovery.