Red Bull also insisted that Gasly would be given the year, before dumping him during the summer break. They were publicly backing Alex as well and demoted him to a reserve, during which year Horner was saying that he deserved to be on the grid - just not in one of their cars, apparently.
That being said, a part of me thinks that Ricciardo’s injury may be Checo’s saviour. I’m not sure they could cope with Verstappen and Tsunoda in the same team, given that they both have a propensity for swearing at their engineer when things go a little wrong with the car. If Red Bull are indeed going with Ford PU’s going forward and Aston Martin with Honda, Yuki may land there.
Ricciardo may be the new Alonso in terms of bad career moves. His leaving Red Bull I could understand, but the timing was in hindsight terrible. If he sensed that Red Bull were backing Max as #1, then categorically there was going to be no fair shot at a championship for him in the way that there is in the second Mercedes seat. He went to the next best team for 2019 - Renault - and a year later Ferrari would hire the driver who had been ‘the best of the rest’ during that season. Had Ricciardo either remained at Red Bull for one more year (I’m guessing Ferrari would have been interested in hiring him had he made it known that he was interested in a team change) or Renault remained a better car than the McLaren, he’d probably have got the drive instead of taking the seat that Sainz had vacated. He didn’t gel with the McLaren for whatever reason and is now reduced to accepting #2 at Red Bull at best. There’ll be orders in that situation and he’ll have to obey them and hope that a seat at Mercedes or Ferrari comes up (and Lando is sure to be first in the queue.) Red Bull will feel that he owes them because they were good enough to give him an opportunity after his stock took a nosedive, good enough to take him back after he walked out on them. Alpine aka Renault opted not to do so even after they lost both of the drivers that they had wanted.
Back to Checo, while I believe Daniel could do well again, his injury has meant that he hasn’t yet done enough mileage to prove that. Mexico was great, but then they also hired Nyck de Vries off of the back of a not dissimilar performance. Brazil was unfortunate, but I believe it was no coincidence that all three who were able to continue running after being impacted by the first lap incident stayed at the rear - Ricciardo, Hulkenberg and Piastri. I think if Daniel hadn’t been injured and George’s car was selected for a plank inspection instead of Lewis’s, Perez would have lost 2nd in the championship and he would be out, with Liam Lawson taking the Alpha Tauri seat.
While the car is a rocketship, it doesn’t matter whether Max’s team mate is able to perform the rear gunner role or not. Verstappen couldn’t hope to compete in 2019 and 2020 because he didn’t have that, while if Bottas had just been sitting in Verstappen’s pit window in Abu Dhabi 2021, Hamilton would have taken the title regardless of the direction Masi gave regarding a restart, withdrawal of the safety car and the unlapping of lapped cars. Perez has had a bad year, but he has so far stepped up at the important moments.
Sometimes the difference really is the driver.
Sometimes the difference really is the driver.