Battle for the Bull

Battle for the Bull

With just 1 race left this season Rud Bull have said they will make no decisions over their vacant seat for 2021 until after the season. It's a seat that Albon currently sits in and wants to keep for next season. But will he? Has he done enough this season to earn retention of his seat?

Christian Horner has gone on record as saying its Albon's seat to lose and that they want him to do well. This is probably because there is nobody else in the Red Bull Young Driver program ready to step into F1, however it's not like there aren't some serious options available.

Names that have been linked with the Red Bull drive are Hulkenberg, who at this point is probably more of an outside chance though after being a super sub this season I'd say he deserves another shot with a competitive team. I also think Renault might be rueing replacing him with Ocon as other than this race at Bahrain where he somewhat lucked into the podium he's been thoroughly outclassed by Riccardo all season whereas the Hulkenberg-Ricciardo pairing was much more evenly matched.

Of course there's Albon who sits in the seat now, but who is under some extreme pressure as his performances this season in what is unquestionably the second best car on the grid can be described as 'lacklustre' at best. He's been lapped by his team mate. That's not how you go about retaining a seat. Then again so has Bottas been lapped by Hamilton but he has his contract for 21 already. Albon was improving over the last 5-6 races but the last couple especially have been poor. In a race where Mercedes took themselves out of contention and Albon in a Red Bull this should have been a race where he could have easily won, such is the pace of the Red Bull compared to everyone except Mercedes. But where did he finish? 6th. And not once all weekend did he look like a threat. Albon surely is going to be booted out Red Bull next season. And if so does he go back to Alpha Tauri or will that be it for his time in F1? I have a feeling it will be the latter as I think he lacks the mental strength needed to come back in the same way that Gasly has shown after his own time getting booted back to the development team from Red Bull.

The most serious contender for the Red Bull seat has to be Sergio Perez surely. This season he has driven brilliantly. The last time he got a top line drive was with McLaren back in 2013 and even he admits that he wasn't ready for that drive then which is probably why it only lasted a single season. He's grown an awful lot since then. He effectively saved what was Force India from bankruptcy and Racing Point was born from it's ashes to the point that next season it will be rebranded as Aston Martin. Inexplicably they're letting Perez go in favour of Laurence Stroll's son Lance and Sebastian Vettel. The latter arguably makes sense even though he's had his worst season ever yet the former makes less sense. Whilst he has performed reasonably well he's been nowhere near Perez' consistency and is only retaining his seat because his father's consortium owns the team. It's all a bit sad really.

But after Perez' performances this season, and looking back all of his stellar performances throughout his career surely Red Bull would be fools not to take Perez for their open seat. Not only does he come with a wealth of experience, is now a proven race winner, he also has some serious sponsorship money to bring with him. Whilst that's less of a concern for a team like Red Bull it certainly can' hurt his chances.

Red Bull need someone like Perez if they want to be able to take the fight to Mercedes. At the moment they are severely limited as only Max Verstappen is putting in the performances for them with Albon being mostl nowhere. This means they can't mix up their strategies to take the fight to the Mercs and the Mercs can just do as they please with little to no threat from Red Bull. With a second Red Bull in the mix Verstappen would have the backup he needs to be able to when the car allows give Mercedes a real fight and the extra points someone like Perez would bring in over Albon would surely mean a lot financially as they'd have a better chance in the constructors championship and be able to earn more money commercially.

Come on Red Bull, do the right thing and announce Perez as your new driver............