[rx100]

Originally Posted by ridersam

Rumors are wild with a video going around of Daniel, Laurent Mekies and Christian Horner talking and Daniel walking away with a wide smile - Danny Ric could be in the 2nd Red Bull seat in the second half !!!

Will be good to see the old Ver-Ric rivalry going again, but if the move is made, surely there will be limitations on Daniel to play the second fiddle.

Do you think the same Danny Ric who is really struggling against Yuki Tsunoda is expected to challenge Max?

[ridersam]

Originally Posted by rx100

Do you think the same Danny Ric who is really struggling against Yuki Tsunoda is expected to challenge Max?

It is not really about challenging Max, but filling the second seat with a consistent point scoring driver, which Perez seems to be struggling at, for almost 2 years. RedBull desperately need the points now with a strong Mclaren and resurgent Merc.

Ricardo has to have the right motivation to perform, else he does not have enough to show to keep his seat next year.

The old rivalry could fuel something in Danny Ric, but there needs to be something there also who will know his place as the second driver - Verstappen will insist on that. Yuki is a bit of a wild card, and he seems to be getting along well with VCarb And with 1/2 year in wilderness, Danny knows that he has last few years left, if he gets something next year at all

[Akmal]

Sainz's move to Williams makes sense because he'd be their lead driver from the first race. Whereas, in the RB camp, he knows he'd only be treated as the second best driver after Max. Sauber and Audi are yet to demonstrate their success in F1, so there was much to lose for Sainz if he joined them at this stage even if it were a lot more money.

[motorworks]

The 2025 driver market looks like it’s finally settling down.

Sainz at Williams, Perez stays on at RedBull and most likely Mercedes would get Kimi Antonelli to replace Lewis. This leaves only 3 seats vacant, one each at Alpine, VCARB, and Sauber. There is speculation that Alpine will opt for Jack Doohan. With Sainz not opting to move to Sauber / Audi, they are most likely to retain Bottas to maintain some status quo. And there is a speculated shootout between Ricciardo and Lawson for the one seat left in VCARB.

So this most likely means that Ricciardo, Zhou, Magnussen are finally out of F1.

[rkv_2401]

Originally Posted by ridersam

It is not really about challenging Max, but filling the second seat with a consistent point scoring driver, which Perez seems to be struggling at, for almost 2 years. RedBull desperately need the points now with a strong Mclaren and resurgent Merc.

As much as I'm a Ricciardo fan and disappointed that Perez has been kept on, I also have to concede that consistency is NOT a Ricciardo trait at the moment. He's shown flashes of speed since Nick De Vries was shown the door, but never been able to string together good performances for more than one weekend. Sometimes he falls apart even within a weekend. E.g. The Miami weekend where he pulled off a blistering P4 finish in the Sprint, only to then qualify 18th and finish 15th in the main race where Tsunoda started 15th in the Sprint, finished 8th there, got into Q3 for the main race and finished 7th in the race. In fact, I don't think he was ever known for his consistency - he has great highs, beating Vettel in 2014, Baku 2017 and China 2018, but these highs were often punctuated with sizable periods of mediocrity even back in 2017 and 18.

Yes, a lot of the recent results are bad luck, believe me, I know - I've been tracking his results and the battle with Tsunoda almost every race. Yes, Ricciardo is really good at developing the car. Yes, Ricciardo and Max seem to like the same type of car setup (strong front). But can the last 4 years all be boiled down to bad luck? I was rooting for him to replace Perez, but I can also see that his own performances are probably the reason Perez hasn't been replaced yet and Tsunoda is still in contention. He has flashes of speed, but if he can't perform consistently even in the relatively easy-to-drive AlphaTauri, it doesn't bode well for him to be able to drive on a knife's edge to tame the Red Bull.

[ex-innova-guy]

Jonathan Wheatley will leave his role as Red Bull’s Sporting Director with the energy drinks firm saying he will become Team Principal of the Audi F1 Team.

Link

[ex-innova-guy]

2025 Driver Lineup

Source

[ex-innova-guy]

Dutch GP Results

Qualifying Result



Qualifying Highlights

https://youtu.be/UAna0bJUhhw?si=zcOIpOkQcetiuLd7

Race Result





- Norris takes the win by finishing 22.8 seconds ahead of Max! He dethroned the home favourite after having a poor start but made up for it after overtaking Max on Lap 18. Lando certainly needs to start better, as he loses position in most races. The Dutch fans (orange army) would certainly be disappointed to see the papaya car on the Top step.





- Damage limitation by Verstappen to finish P2. He was on his own after losing the lead.

- Superb drive by Leclerc to finish P3 and complete the podium after starting P6. He was 0.9 seconds behind in qualifying, but surprisingly, the car came alive in the race, and boy did it have some pace! Don’t say this often, but Ferrari strategy worked by undercutting Piastri for the first stop. Hope there are more races where they execute their strategy perfectly.

- A poor start led Piastri to finish P4. He was stuck behind Russell for the first stint. Went long in clean air and came fast on Hards to overtake Russell. Unfortunately, he had lost a position to Leclerc and just couldn’t overtake him.

- Mega Drive by Sainz to finish P5 after starting P10. He made the most of the race pace and made some action-packed passes.

- Decent drive by Perez to take P6. At least he was somewhere in the top 6 instead of the poor pre-summer performance.

- Mercedes surprisingly didn’t have pace today and suffered because of the same.

- McLaren is surely going to take the constructors championship. The point gap is reducing after every race.

- At one point, 5 cars were racing against each other on the main straight.


Video Link

Tyre Data





Race Highlights

https://youtu.be/cFM_6zb35rI?si=QR2-G7xJEUn60_00

Driver Standings



Constructor Standings



I just hope Norris and McLaren get better from here. They are off to a great start after the summer break.

[chandrda]

Lando Norris showed some maturity to not panic and lose composure after losing the lead in the 1st corner. Good to see Red bull getting beaten on pure pace after a long time.

Surprised at Ferrari race and equally surprised at Mercedes not having good race pace.

Watching the race live on Fancode was pain full. They skillfully managed to miss few key overtaking

Regards

[mack.mehul]

Well I think Norris needs to sort out his starts, he again lost a place after starting from P1. However it did not matter much because on pure race pace, Mclaren was unbeatable and it turned out to be an excellent drive by Norris to take the fastest lap and also beat max by around 22-23 seconds. Beating a red bull and that too of max by such margin shows the excellent work done by Mclaren.

With such race pace, I was expecting Piastri to be atleast P3 or P2 however howsoever brilliant racer he might be, he surely lacks a bit in race pace. Amazing drives by both the ferrari's whose in season pace year after year is very confusing. Ferrari usually starts the season on a high but after a 6-7 races, their race pace starts goin down alarmingly. However in the latter half of season they recoup back the pace but Ferrari's in season development is surely disappointing to say the least.

I expected Mercedes to be strong after they having won last 2 out of 3 races however they did not have the race pace today simply. But after having won in Spa, I expect them to be strong in Monza. I really dont understand why Red Bull are bent upon to have Perez when he does not have the pace in a red bull. In the fastest car (at start of season) and at present in second fastest car, he can only manage P5, P6 or P8. The persistence of red bull with perez is coming at their own cost as now mclaren are just 25-30 points behind in the constructors and i believe mclaren will atleast win the constructors trophy this season.

The last would be five cars battling on the bankment at Zandvoort and it looked like a gang war happening in the race. Good fun and how Albon shouting its dangerous on the radio!!!

[AtheK]

So Max getting a taste of his own medicine, but he did stay calm throughout the race at least on team radio, I thought he would be ranting.

Constructors seems to be there for taking for McLaren until some magic happens with Perez, he has been way off colour this entire season. The drivers championship will also get exciting by end of the season, Max will need to continue to put in a herculean effort to tame that car to continue finishing in top 3. Would be fun if we can get a repeat of 2021 season ending at Abu Dhabi.

[Dry Ice]

Amazing weekend, this! Lando did well in quali, Max could hold on to P1 for a matter of seconds before Lando snatched it back. Took him a bit longer on race day, but he beat the RedBull comprehensively.

This season, Lando denied RedBull their home race win in Austria, denied Max his home race win at NL.

That said, Lando needs to improve his starts. I wonder if Piastri could have taken the lead if both McLarens were on the first row. Piastri was sort of boxed in behind Lando and lost his position early, and could not really recover.

Originally Posted by mack.mehul

I really dont understand why Red Bull are bent upon to have Perez when he does not have the pace in a red bull. In the fastest car (at start of season) and at present in second fastest car, he can only manage P5, P6 or P8. The persistence of red bull with perez is coming at their own cost as now mclaren are just 25-30 points behind in the constructors and i believe mclaren will atleast win the constructors trophy this season.

Probably due to the tens of millions of sponsorship money he brings along?

Originally Posted by AtheK

.. Would be fun if we can get a repeat of 2021 season ending at Abu Dhabi.

Fingers crossed, that would be a riot. It will be fun to see both McLarens chase down that RedBull on the final laps!

[mack.mehul]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

Probably due to the tens of millions of sponsorship money he brings along?

Most probably this could be the reason. But i also think red bull are being cautious in replacing him as currently within the team they do not have a good replacement available for him. Ricciardo, tsunoda are not delivering consistent results and i dont think the much touted Liam Lawson will be able to perform significantly better than perez.
However if they were to look outside of their pool of drivers, there are many drivers who may get better results than perez. The biggest mistake of red bull was letting go of Gasly. He is really a talented driver. I think that Bottas, Ocon etc. are also better drivers than perez.

[satyamkolhe]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

Probably due to the tens of millions of sponsorship money he brings along?

Also because they had the fastest car and a driver like Max. So they didn't really want to have a WDC fight between their own drivers which could have taken some points off the table and anyways Max was consistent enough to win them WCC on his own.

Now that they clearly don't have the fastest car, things might change but then again there were rumours that Perez has been rewarded for being loyal to Christian Horner in all the BTS drama involving him and his misconduct where major powerplayers at RB were against him including the Verstappens. So we never know and maybe Perez might survive one more season here.

[volkman10]

Williams runs out of patience and drops Logan Sargeant from the car for the rest of the season.
Enter Franco Colapinto, the Argentine who currently competes in F2 and who will have the opportunity to fight in 9 races.