Red Bull’s decision to axe 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Daniel Ricciardo and promote 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Liam Lawson at their sister team RB represents a first step in solving their wider F1 driver line-up dilemma.

Following Thursday’s official confirmation that Lawson will take Ricciardo’s RB seat for the rest of the 2024 season, the 22-year-old Nꦓew Zealander now has six races to stake a claim for a future Red Bull drive.

This audition will most likely determine whether Lawson continues at RB alongside 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Yuki Tsunoda in 2025, but it could yet have ramifications for the Red Bull senior t🍷eam.

“I’ve basically got until the end of this season and then I’ll find out more as ﷽the season 𓆏goes on. At this stage, it’s the six races,” Lawson said in an interview with New Zealand radio channel Newstalk ZB.

When asked what is required to secure a full-time seat for 2025, he replied: “I need to perform, basically.  I need to try🅰 to obviously show my worth in F1 and I would say do a similar job to what 💞I did last year.

“That’s what’s given me the shot now. I just need to do enough to stay♑ in the seat next year.”

Pressure back on Perez

The wider implications of Ricciardo being dropped is that Red Bull now have a chance to properly evaluate Lawson🌺’s F1 credentials alongside Tsunoda.

It is not Lawson’s first rodeo, however. Last year, he stepped in for Ricciardo after the Australian broke his han♓d in a crash two races into 😼his F1 comeback, having taken Nyck de Vries’ seat.

In his five outings, Lawson impressed Red Bull with several solid and mature drives. The standouℱt highlight ✤came in Singapore, where Lawson reached Q3 and finished ninth, scoring two points.

Red Bull h🐼ad already committed to a Ricciardo-Tsunoda line-up for 2024 at this stage, so despite making ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚa good impression, Lawson would have to spend another year on the sidelines.

With Lawson now getting a second chance to prove his worth with the main aim of helping RB stay ahead of Haas in the constructors’ championship, the pressure will be piled back onto 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Sergio Perez, who is not exactly covering himself in glory.&nb🔴sp;

Despite signing a new ♏two-year contract in early June, speculation swirled about Perez’s future over the summer following a significant downturn in form. To quash the commotion, Red Bull felt the need to act by insisting that Perez🔜 would see out the remainder of the 2024 campaign.

While the plan is for Perez to keep his seat through 2025, there is zero guarantee he will stay for the full season, assuming he even staღrts i💖t.

Overshadowed by Ricciardo’s F1 farewell, Perez struggled to a lowly 10th-place finish in Singapore while teammate 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Max Verstappen took second as Red Bull lost further ground to McLaren in the con✃structors’ standings.

Red Bull bo𝓀ss Christian Horner urged Perez to up his game and declared the team “need two drivers firing on all cylinders”. That was a clear warning shot to Perez, who will now be looking nervo♒usly over his shoulders at how Lawson gets on.

Perez’s position at Red Bull had been spared largely by a lack of obvious candidates to replace him, but Lawson’s arrival at RB will give both him, and the senior team, sometꦦhing to think about.

Red Bull’s 2026 driver dilemma

Ricciardo’s sad and slightly awkward F1 exit is part of a bigger picture play for Red Bull. The decision unꦕderlined he is not part of the team’s future plans and that his hopes of a fairy﷽tale return to Red Bull was nothing more than a pipe dream.

Perez’s poor f🅰orm may be giving Red Bull a short-term headache, but they also face a dilemma when it comes to their 2026 driver line-up, which coincides with F1🅠’s next major regulation overhaul.

On paper, they will have one seat to fill alongside Verstappen, who is tied down until the enℱd of 2028. But the Dutchman’s future is also the subject of deb🧔ate.

Verstꦕappen continues to be linked with a possible switch to Mercedes, who have heavily - and publicly - courted him in recent months, while his stand-of꧙f against the FIA in Singapore in response to his punishment amid an F1 swearing saga has raised fresh questions whether he may call time on his career early.

Horner has admitted Red Bu෴ll face some tough calls over the coming 12 months or so as they continue to evaluate the promising talents in their driver🍷 pool.

“We’re having to look further down the road,” Horner told Sky Sports F1 in Singapore. “We’ve got so🔯me grea🦩t talent, we’ve got Liam Lawson. We’re not quite sure, looking at the likes of [Franco] Colapinto and [Ollie] Bearman and [Kimi] Antonelli, is he at that level? Only time will tell.

“We’ve got Isack Hadjar in Formula 2, that’s been until recently leading that championship. We’ve got a very exciting young talent that I’m particularly excited about in F3 - Arvid Lindblad. So we’ve got d🐷epth in our junior programme. We want to take time to consider what all of our o🃏ptions look like for the future.”

Were Lawson to impress Red Bull enough to convince them to give him the nod over Perez for 2025, or at any point during next season, Isack Hadjar (Formula 2), Ayumu Iwasa (Super Formula)𝐆 and possibly Arvid Lindblad (Formula 3) would be t♚owards the front of the queue of candidates to step up to RB.

Horner also stressed that Red Bull are not “afraid” to look outside of their driver pool and intriguingly namechecked168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史: George Russell as a potential option for 2026, comments which irked Mercedes cou𓆏nterpart Toto Wolf♐f.

“George Russell is out of contract at the end of next year. It ꦬwould be foolish not to take that into consideration,” Horner said. "There are other talented drivers that could well be out of contract as well.”

Horner appeared to be hinting that the two-time grand prix winner could be Red Bull’s Plan B in a worse-case scenario that saw Verstappen leave for Mercedes, who next year are promoting their highly-rated teenage prodigy Andrea Kimi Antonelli as Ferrari-bound 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Lewis Hamilton’꧅s replacement. It remains to be seen if Red Bull would seriously pursue Russell if Verstappen stayed put.

Either way, with it seeming unlikely that Perez will be handed an🌄other deal beyond his current contract, Red Bull will surely be looking for at least one new d🐻river.