The Curse of the Second Red Bull Seat

From Sebastian Vettel’s first Championship winning year in 2010 to about 2018, Red Bull had competitive driver lineups, with Mark Webber performing well as a Number 2 driver, Daniel Ricciardo coming in and establishing himself as the team’s new Number 1, Daniil Kvyat beating Ricciardo in 2015, and of course Max Verstappen coming in as the team’s future. Growing up, Red Bull was such an exciting team to watch, particularly between 2016 and 2018, because it was such a toss-up as to which of their drivers would come out on top. However, after Daniel Ricciardo made the switch to join Renault from the start of 2019, it’s never really been a question of whether the second driver can challenge Max Verstappen, and in fact, it’s gotten to the point where we head into weekend’s thinking about whether an appearance in Q3 is even possible! There are multiple factors to this, one of them is simply the fact that Max has levelled up completely as the best driver in the world, but there’s also the fact that Verstappen is the only man who can drive the Red Bull car because it’s just too sensitive for everyone else. Because this has been going on for 7 years now, and Yuki Tsunoda has now been announced as a proper Red Bull driver moving forward in place of Liam Lawson, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at “The Curse of the Second Red Bull Seat”!

Pierre Gasly (2019)

After Daniel Ricciardo left the higher-ups at Red Bull Racing a little bit stunned by his decision to leave the team, Red Bull made the decision to promote Pierre Gasly in his place! Pierre was 23 at the time, and he’d had a pretty promising junior career, winning the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 Championship in 2013, GP2 in 2016, and he also finished second in his 2017 Super Formula campaign! Gasly had driven 26 Races for Toro Rosso before his move to the main team, with his highlight result being a P4 in Bahrain! However, things did not start well for The Gasman as he was knocked out in Q1 in the season opener in Australia, and he failed to make it back into the points!

Pierre massively struggled compared to his teammate, with Max Verstappen beating him 11-1 in both Qualifying and Race head-to-heads! Also, it’s worth mentioning that the one Race where Gasly beat Verstappen (in Silverstone), Max’s car was flipped in the air by Sebastian Vettel, and he still only finished 5 seconds behind the Frenchman! For me, the biggest concern with Pierre Gasly at the time was his performances when Max was winning, in Austria, Verstappen was taking a sensational win whilst Gasly was P7 and more crucially, a lap down! Moving onto Germany, Max took another great win in what was one of the most chaotic Formula 1 Races of all time, and Pierre was finishing down in P14 after coming together with Alex Albon’s Toro Rosso (which is kind of ironic)! Also, when Max took his first-ever Pole Position at the following round in Hungary, Gasly was 9 tenths back in P6 which we could all agree was simply not good enough!

The reason why Pierre Gasly was dropped following the Summer Break was he was simply way too far behind his teammate, his performances in comparison to Max were nowhere near good enough. However, it’s funny to look back at it now when you consider how other second Red Bull drivers have since gone because Pierre managed to score points in 9 of the 12 weekends, with five Top 6 finishes in a car that was pushing Ferrari for second fastest! Ultimately, in their 12 Races together, Verstappen managed to score 180 points compared to Gasly’s 63, and that percentage-wise meant Gasly earnt about 26% of Red Bull’s points in that period. I also want to quickly highlight that outside of that first half of 2019, Pierre Gasly has proven himself to be a great driver, famously winning in Monza (2020) whilst also taking another 4 Podiums!

Alex Albon (2019-2020)

After Red Bull made their decision to drop Pierre Gasly during the Summer Break, their next decision was to choose who would replace Gasly for the rest of the season, and despite Daniil Kvyat scoring a Podium in Germany, the decision was made that Alex Albon would take the seat for the remainder of the 2019 Season! Alex was also 23 at the time, and he’d done well during the Junior Formulas, with a second place in GP3 in 2016 (behind Charles Leclerc), and he also third in the 2018 FIA Formula 2 Championship (behind his fellow F1 Rookies George Russell and Lando Norris)! Albon had only driven 12 Races for Toro Rosso before his move to the main team, with his P6 finish in Germany being the real highlight!

Alex Albon’s start to his Red Bull career actually went pretty well, he climbed through the order to take 5th in Belgium, and he followed that up by finishing inside the Top 6 in each of the next 6 Races! Then Brazil came along, and Alex did a great job of avoiding issues that some of the other top teams faced to be running second on the penultimate, but he was then hit by Lewis Hamilton and sent spinning both off of the Podium and out of the points completely! However, Albon was able to finish 6th in the Season Finale in Abu Dhabi, and he ended up scoring 11 points more than Pierre Gasly managed for Red Bull which was a big positive, especially given he had 3 less Races in the car! However, compared to Max, Albon was still 8-0 down in Qualifying, and he was 4-0 down in terms of Podiums during the second half of the season!

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than the season starting in Australia in March, the season kicked off in July around the Red Bull Ring in Austria! With teammate Max Verstappen out early, and on a fresh set of softs behind two weakened Mercedes, the opportunity for Alex Albon to win in Formula 1 for the first time was there, and it probably would’ve happened had it not been for another collision with Lewis Hamilton, once again sending him tumbling down the order! Albon then went on a run of 6 consecutive points-scoring finishes, but that was something to celebrate when his teammate ended all 6 of those weekends standing on the Podium (including winning at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix in Silverstone)! Monza was then a weekend that particularly stood out as Max was again out due to issues, but Alex could only manage 15th in a Race where Pierre Gasly won for AlphaTauri!

The next round in Mugello proved to be Alex’s highlight for Red Bull, overtaking Daniel Ricciardo late on to secure his first-ever Podium in the sport! However, after that, Albon’s results reached an all-time low as he managed just 1 point in 4 weekends, including being lapped by his teammate whilst Verstappen went on to pick up yet another Podium! Turkey presented a great opportunity for Alex, he was leading whilst everyone else was going off, but he too spun round and ultimately finished 7th before a failure for Sergio Perez’s Racing Point allowed Albon to join his teammate on the Podium in Bahrain! The big problem with Alex Albon at Red Bull wasn’t just the gap to his teammate, but also the fact that he never took full advantage when his teammate was out, and that came true again the following week in Sakhir as he could only finish 6th behind 2 Racing Point’s, 2 Renault’s, and a McLaren! Albon then came home 4th in Abu Dhabi (whilst Verstappen won) to ultimately finish 7th in the Standings, some 109 points behind his teammate (who suffered 5 DNF’s)!

In fairness to Alex Albon, he came in and did a really solid job for Red Bull, he did exactly what they needed him to do, but I’ve always felt like that moment in Austria with Lewis Hamilton is something he’s never truly recovered from! Alex lost 25-0 to Max Verstappen in Qualifying, 25-0, that’s an insane stat, and Verstappen scored 15 Podiums during their time as teammates compared to Albon’s 2! Points-wise, Verstappen managed to score 311 points to Albon’s 181, meaning Alex earnt around 37% of Red Bull’s points during that period! Getting rid of Alex Albon was definitely the right move at the time, especially given who Red Bull brought in, but just like with Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon has proven to be a really good racing driver, he returned to F1 with Williams back in 2022, and he continues to showcase his talents!

Sergio Perez (2021-2024)

After a couple of years of promotions from the second team not working, Red Bull took a very different approach as they brought someone in from outside their team completely, the extremely experienced Sergio Perez! Sergio was 31 at the time, and he’d driven 195 Races before his move to RBR, scoring plenty of Podiums along the way with his highlight moment coming when he went from last to first to win in Sakhir (in 2020)!

Sergio started his Red Bull journey on the right note, coming from the pitlane to P5 in Bahrain before he managed to outqualify Max Verstappen in only their second weekend as teammates, with Checo just barely missing out on a maiden Pole! Perez then followed up with consistent Top 5 finishes before in Azerbaijan, in a Race where Max retired due a tyre failure, he took full advantage to take his first win for the team. This was a big moment, especially given what we’ve already talked about with Verstappen’s other teammates! Perez would then follow it up with another Podium in France, but the Mexican hit a bit of a rough patch in the middle of the season, failing to score any points in Silverstone, Hungary, and Belgium! Checo was able to bounce back later in the year to take 3-straight Podiums, including a P3 at home, but the big thing a lot of people remember about Sergio’s debut season for Red Bull was his ultra-defensive driving on Lewis Hamilton in the Season Finale as Max Verstappen eventually went on to secure his maiden World Championship! Ultimately, Sergio finished 4th in his debut year for Red Bull Racing, earning 1 Win and 5 Podiums during the year, but there was still the fact that he was over 200 points behind his teammate, a gap that cost Red Bull winning both Titles!

In the second round of 2022 in Saudi Arabia, Sergio Perez pulled out a special lap to take his maiden Pole Position in Formula 1, some 215 Races after his debut! An unfortunately timed Safety Car ultimately dropped Checo all the way down to 4th in the Race itself, but it was still a positive weekend! Perez would then take multiple Podiums over the next few weekends, but he was still lagging behind his teammate! However, in the wet and tricky conditions in Monaco, Sergio held his nerve and the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz behind to take a terrific win in the most iconic Race of them all! Not long after this moment, and Perez was handed a contract extension to stay with the team until at least 2024, and he then followed it up with a few more Podiums, including a great P2 in Silverstone (from the back)! However, after that weekend, Sergio would score just 1 Podium finish in the next 6 weekends as Verstappen took 5 straight wins! However, in Singapore, Red Bull made a calculation error that saw Max only qualify in 8th whilst Perez would be starting the Race from the Front Row! In the Race, Verstappen made another mistake, but the same could not be said about his Mexican teammate as Checo took a sublime victory, which in my opinion was the best of his entire career! Perez then ended the season with another 3 Podiums, even though it’s worth mentioning the moment in Sao Paulo where Max refused to let him by for P6, despite the team’s instructions! At the time, this was Sergio Perez’s best result Championship-wise as he came home third, but he was still 149 points behind his teammate (which is at least closer than the year before)!

The start of the 2023 Formula 1 Season was Sergio’s best, he took Pole again in Saudi Arabia, this time going on to win the Race, and he won both the Sprint and the main Grand Prix in Azerbaijan (this actually turned out to be Perez’s last win for Red Bull)! In Miami, teammate Verstappen got caught out by Red Flags meaning he would start 9th whilst Perez took advantage to take Pole! For the large majority of the Race, it looked set that Checo was going to take the lead of the Drivers’ Championship for the first time in his career, but that wasn’t to be the case as Max both caught and passed him to take a pretty crucial win! We talked about Austria 2020 being the moment that Alex Albon failed to recover from, but I’d say that this was that moment for Checo! The following weekend in Monaco was an absolute mess, Sergio must have spun the car at least 5 times, and he was just lagging a long way back from his teammate. People were starting to suggest whether or not Perez should be replaced for 2024, and that was a fair question to ask when you watched some of his performances, particularly in Japan where he looked like he’d forgotten how to drive! However, perhaps the worst moment of Checo’s 2023 campaign came at his home Race in Mexico City, where he tried an “all or nothing” move around the outside into Turn 1, and he ultimately got bounced into the air, with too much damage taking him out of the Race completely! In the 17 rounds that followed the Miami Grand Prix, Checo managed just 5 Podiums, and that’s pretty damning when you consider that Max won 16 of those Races! Whilst Sergio Perez ended the season a career-best second place, not only did he score less points in a year with a better car than he did in 2022, but he managed to score a whopping 290 points less than Max Verstappen!

Despite his struggles in 2023, Sergio Perez was kept on at Red Bull Racing for a 4th season, and things started pretty well for the Mexican as he achieved 4 Podiums in the first 5 Race weekends (he also appeared in the Top 3 in the Chinese Sprint too)! However, things then started to turn south again as Sergio suffered back-to-back DNF’s in Monaco and Canada, finished 8th whilst his teammate won in Spain, spinning and finishing 17th in Silverstone, and crashing in Qualifying at the Hungaroring! As Red Bull’s pace continued to drop, so did Sergio’s confidence, but there was an outlier in that in the form of Azerbaijan! As we already know, Perez is a Baku specialist, in fact he’s the only driver to win around there twice (and that’s not including his Sprint win), and this was a rare weekend where he simply outperformed his World Championship-winning teammate! However, despite all of those positives, a late-Race crash with Carlos Sainz meant Sergio still came away from the weekend without any points to show for it! Following Baku, Checo would score just 9 points in the final 7 weekends of the season, and that included probably an even worse Home Race than the year before, and a spin behind the Safety Car in Qatar! At the end of the day, Perez could only manage 8th in the Drivers’ Standings, without a win, and some 285 points behind his teammate who won his 4th-straight World Championship!

Due to his loss in confidence and the fact that Red Bull had lost the Constructors’ World Championship, the team decided to let Sergio Perez go, and you can hardly blame them! The highs were there, Checo achieved 5 Race Wins and another 24 Podiums in his time with Red Bull, and you have to say that all of those wins were pretty impressive! However, Sergio’s lack of performance in 2023 and particularly in 2024 simply wasn’t good enough; he was shambolic at times, and despite 5 wins being a positive, it’s nothing compared to Max Verstappen’s 53 during that time period (and of course 4 World Titles)! In terms of points, Verstappen managed 1,861.5 points compared to Perez’s 932 points during their 4 years as teammates, meaning Sergio scored around 33% of Red Bull’s points during that time period! Whilst Sergio Perez’s time in Formula 1 came to a disappointing end, it would be wrong to forget just how talented he truly was!

Liam Lawson (2025)

With Sergio Perez out, it was time for Red Bull Racing to go back to promoting drivers from their junior team, but despite Yuki Tsunoda being the more experienced and obvious pick, Red Bull opted for Liam Lawson instead! Liam is 23, and he was coming in after a strong Junior career that included that included a Toyota Racing Series Title in 2019 as well as strong campaigns in DTM, Super Formula, and FIA Formula 2! Lawson had only driven 11 Races before his move to the big team, and his best moment was probably his great P9 finish for AlphaTauri in Singapore!

Despite being from New Zealand, Liam Lawson had actually never driven around Albert Park, so he headed into the opening weekend of the new season in Australia “slightly blind”! A hydraulics issue in Practice also didn’t help matters, and in Qualifying, Lawson could only manage P18, with the only the Haas duo of Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman behind! What made matters even worse for Liam was his teammate was up in third, and a whole second faster than him in Q1! On Race Day, conditions were pretty treacherous, with carnage ensuing as early as the Formation Lap, and Liam just couldn’t keep the car on the track with any sort of pace, eventually spinning into the wall at Turn 2 to put an end to a pretty dismal debut!

Just like Albert Park, Liam Lawson had never driven around the Shanghai International Circuit, and the added fact of it being a Sprint Weekend would make you think that nothing is on the side of the young Kiwi! Sprint Qualifying happened, and Lawson was 20th and last, which is a new low for this second Red Bull seat whilst Max Verstappen was up in second! Whilst finishing P14 in the Sprint wasn’t amazing either, Liam was at least showing that he still had decent race craft, and there was hope that this could at least give him a little confidence boost! However, skip ahead 4 hours, and all that confidence was evaporated even more as Lawson was once again slowest! In the Race, Red Bull opted to start Liam from the Pitlane in order to help make the car more drivable for him, but despite all of that, Lawson still struggled for pace as he finished in-between fellow Rookies Jack Doohan (who had a penalty) and Isack Hadjar! Due to disqualifications, Liam would end the Race 12th, but the fact there was 3 disqualifications and a retirement for Fernando Alonso meant P12 still looked pretty poor!

Amazingly, those 2 weekends were enough for Red Bull to drop Liam Lawson back down to Racing Bulls, claiming he simply wasn’t ready and that they “made a mistake”! I think everyone can agree that Liam’s start to his Red Bull Racing career has been abysmal, it’s been shocking, but it’s still only 2 Races at tracks he’s never driven at! Lawson is also great around Suzuka, so the fact that he’s not even getting to drive there for the main team is a big loss for him, even though it’s also a fair statement to make that he’ll probably perform better in the VCARB! I personally think it’s quite harsh, but it’s ultimately happened now so nothing’s going to be changed, and I guess we’ll see if Liam Lawson can recover from this!

Yuki Tsunoda (2025)

With Liam Lawson now out of the main team, Yuki Tsunoda is finally getting his shot in the major leagues! Yuki is 24 right now, and he’s a former Japanese F4 Champion (in 2018) as well as a Race winner in FIA Formula 2 (he ultimately finished 3rd in the Standings)! Tsunoda has driven 92 Races before his move to the big team (which is a lot more than some of the others we’ve talked about), and his best result was a P4 in the 2021 Season Finale in Abu Dhabi!

The positive for Yuki Tsunoda, and arguably the advantage he has over fellow junior drivers who have been promoted to this seat, is the fact that he is an awful lot more experienced than they were when they got the promotion! Yuki has developed and matured massively in his career so far, he was poor in his Rookie Season, he crashed far too much, and he probably would’ve been out of the door after just 1 year had it not been for his connections with Honda! However, whilst there is some fortune to that, Tsunoda took full advantage of it, and once Pierre Gasly left AlphaTauri at the end of 2022, the Japanese driver has firmly established himself as a team leader, beating the likes of Nyck de Vries, Daniel Ricciardo, and even Liam Lawson!

However, the negatives for Yuki is despite how much he’s grown and how quick of a driver he has proven to be, that Red Bull second seat is somewhat of a poison chalice, and there’s no reasons to believe that this time will be any different from all the other drivers we’ve already talked about! Yuki is quick, so was everyone else. Tsunoda is talented, so was everyone else! It’s vital for Yuki to get off to a good start, because we’ve seen what happened to both Pierre and Liam when they didn’t, but even that doesn’t guarantee a strong and happy ending, just ask Alex and Checo! Ultimately, Red Bull Racing is Max Verstappen’s team, and the second driver cannot compete with that!

	Max Verstappen	Pierre Gasly	Max Verstappen	Alex Albon	Max Verstappen	Sergio Perez	Max Verstappen	Liam Lawson
Wins	2	0	3	0	53	5	0	0
Poles	1	0	2	0	37	3	0	0
Podiums	5	0	15	2	70	29	1	0
Quali H2H	11	1	25	0	80	10	2	0
Points	180	63	311	181	1,861.5	932	36	0
Percentage of Points	74.1%	25.9%	63.2%	36.8%	66.6%	33.4%	100%	0%