Perez v Ricciardo uncovered: The data behind Red Bull’s big driver decision

Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo stood alongside one another at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Sergio Perez will continue as Max Verstappen’s teammate after the summer break despite poor performance metrics over the last few months.

Christian Horner and Helmut Marko have had a difficult decision in the last weeks as the battle for the Constructors’ World Championship becomes ever fiercer with Max Verstappen up against a two-driver assault from McLaren and Mercedes in particular.

Comparing Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo in data terms

The numbers don’t lie. The 2024 season is one of the most evenly matched in recent years in terms of performance between teams. And in this situation, the impact of the drivers behind the wheel is decisive to intimidate rivals into different race strategies and, ultimately, to score as many points as possible.

Of Red Bull’s 408 points so far, 277 have been scored by Verstappen, to Perez’s 131. This places Red Bull as the ‘Big Four’ team with the worst ratio of points difference scored per teammate.

These numbers are very representative. With the same car, in the first 14 races of the calendar before the summer break, Verstappen has scored 2.11 points for every point scored by Perez so far.

As for head-to-head in qualifying, comparing the pace of both in the same sessions to try to make the fairest possible comparison, Verstappen wins 14-0 with Perez being +0.471s slower on average than the Dutch driver.

Despite still holding top spot in the Constructors’ World Championship, the numbers show a worrying trend for Red Bull.

With McLaren and Mercedes on the rise and Ferrari, despite their problems in recent races, staying within striking distance, Red Bull’s championship chances look increasingly unlikely.

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In the last three races in Silverstone, Hungary and Spa-Francorchamps, tracks with quite different characteristics from each other, McLaren has scored 98 points to Red Bull’s 53 points. If this trend continues, McLaren could be leading the championship as soon as the Azerbaijan GP.

Christian Horner and Helmut Marko know this reality perfectly well. Knowing the very limited development plan for the RB20 at this stage of the current regulations, the big question they have asked themselves is: is there anyone capable of improving Sergio Perez’s numbers with this car? And that’s why the names of Daniel Ricciardo and Liam Lawson came up.

The truth is that Daniel Ricciardo is not in his best form either. To reward him with a promotion to Red Bull is perhaps too ambitious.

Of course, his numbers against Max Verstappen in the past show him to be his strongest teammate, even beating him in the 2017 season – and in 2016, although Max didn’t do the full season with Red Bull. But that was almost seven years ago already.

As we can appreciate, only Ricciardo in the last seven years has been able to come close to Max Verstappen’s pace in qualifying.

Perez’s numbers have not been too bad and, until these last 14 races where Red Bull has started to suffer the pressure from other teams, the Mexican has always been successful in his status of ‘number two driver’.

In 2024 so far, Daniel Ricciardo is behind Yuki Tsunoda in both the Drivers’ standings and qualifying head-to-head, with the Japanese driver leading the Australian 9-5.

However, Ricciardo has improved his numbers since the Austrian GP when rumours of a possible replacement for Perez grew louder than ever.

Despite Perez’s poor numbers and the fact that the reaction Red Bull had hoped for has yet to come, the team has given him another vote of confidence. Nor has anyone else done anything extraordinary to earn the privilege of driving the RB20.

In a critical situation like Red Bull’s at the moment, instability does not seem to be a feasible solution.

Perez will keep his seat for now due to his solid work over the past three years, but if he continues in poor form Red Bull will surely terminate his contract ahead of an expected even fiercer battle during the F1 2025 season.

And there will be all the more reason if the 2024 Constructors’ Championship trophy ends up in the trophy shelf of another team…

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