virage du raccordement

Nine days ago, Red Bull announced the prolongation of Sergio Perez’s contract as a Red Bull driver. Last Saturday, it was Yuki Tsunoda ‘s contract extension with VCARB that was confirmed.

The news came in a context where a lot of people were projecting the second Red Bull seat in a lot of hands, including Yuki Tsunoda’s, and not so much Sergio Perez’s.

A lot of factors come into play went it comes to F1 contracts. Were the right decisions made if we only focus on the results so far this season? Let’s see.

qualifying results

races

driver	Q1	Q2	Q3	poles	average qualifying position
Max Verstappen	0	0	9	7	1,7
Sergio Perez	2	1	6	0	7,1
Daniel Ricciardo	2	5	2	0	12,7
Yuki Tsunoda	1	1	7	0	10,0

Max Verstappen has been mastering the qualifying exercice since the beginning of the season with 7 poles in the first 7 rounds of the season. He then qualified P6 in Monaco and P2 in Montreal (having equalized George Russell’s best time but doing so later than the Mercedes driver in Q3).

In the first 6 rounds, Sergio Perez always went to Q3 and qualified P5 at the lowest (and P2 at his best, twice). In the 3 following rounds Checo got his first Q2 elimination (placing P11 in Imola) and then two straight Q1 eliminations (P18 in Monaco and P16 in Montreal).

Daniel Ricciardo started the season with 2 Q2 eliminations and a Q1 elimination, then repeat. He achieved 2 Q3s in the last 3 rounds with his best race qualifying result in Montreal (P5).

Yuki Tsunoda only missed Q3 twice : a P11 in Bahrain pour the first round and a P19 in China for the fifth round.

If we look at the average qualifying position of the whole grid: Max is P1, Checo is P7, Yuki is P10 and Daniel is P14.

Let’s take a look at the numbers if we separate the season in two, before and after the beginning of the European leg.

driver	all season	round 1 – round 6	round 7 – round 9
Max Verstappen	1.7	1	3.0
Sergio Perez	7.1	3.2	15
Daniel Ricciardo	12.7	14.5	9
Yuki Tsunoda	10.0	11.2	7.7

While Max Verstappen has been pretty stable (the lone P6 in Monaco tank the average a bit but he still scored a pole and a P2 over that length of time), Sergio Perez hasn’t been able to find any solution in the qualifying exercise since the arrival in Europe meanwhile he had been great before that (his worst qualifying result before Imola was a P5).

Both VCARB drivers have been improving their starting position on the grid, Yuki always placing P7 or P8 while Daniel put his car in P13, P9 and P5 over the last 3 rounds.

sprints

driver	China (round 5)	Miami (round 6)
Max Verstappen	P4	P1
Sergio Perez	P6	P3
Daniel Ricciardo	P14	P4
Yuki Tsunoda	P19	P15

For both Red Bull drivers, their qualifying results in the two sprints that have occured so far were on par with their qualifying results in Sunday races up to that point.

On the VCARB side, Yuki Tsunoda hasn’t really been feeling sprints yet, they’re his two worst qualifying results all races considered (he also qualified P19 in the main race in Shanghai, his next worst qualifying result outside of sprint is his P11 in Bahrain). Daniel Ricciardo’s P14 in Shanghai was in line with his usual results but his P4 came as a surprise and is currently his best qualifying result all races considered.

races results

races

Races & Sprints results for Red Bull and VCARB drivers in the first 9 rounds

driver	wins	podiums	races in the points	DNFs	average position (only finished races)
Max Verstappen	6	7	8	1	1,9
Sergio Perez	0	4	7	2	3,9
Daniel Ricciardo	0	0	1	2	12,7
Yuki Tsunoda	0	0	5	1	10,6

Sergio Perez’s 4 podiums occured in the first 5 rounds of the season (he had a P5 finish in Australia). Since the beginning of the European leg, he’s had a P5, a P8 and then two DNFs.

Before having a late mistake in Montreal that put him outside of the points, Yuki Tsunoda had been in the points in 5 of the 6 previous rounds.

sprints

Max and Checo finished in the same position in both Shanghai and Miami (respectively P1 and P3). Daniel finished P11 and P4 while Yuki had P16 and P8 finishes.

teammates battles

Red Bull

driver	races quali	races results	sprints quali	sprints results	points in the standings
Max Verstappen	9	8	2	2	194 – P1
Sergio Perez	0	1	0	0	107 – P5

Max Verstappen absolutely crushes Sergio Perez head-to-head. The only time Checo finished higher than Max was when Max had to retire his car because of brakes issues in Australia.

VCARB

driver	races quali	races results*	sprints quali	sprints results	points in the standings
Daniel Ricciardo	2	2	2	2	9 – P12
Yuki Tsunoda	7	6	0	0	19 – P10

*Daniel and Yuki both DNFed in Shanghai.

Yuki Tsunoda is definitely outperforming his teammate on the regular races field (and he has scored twice as more points in the standings). For now, Daniel Ricciardo is doing better in the sprint exercise.

Compared to 2023

Because 9 rounds is not that much and I think it’s interesting to look if the current results are in line with last season or not, here is one last short part to the study.

I won’t talk about Max Verstappen who dominated the whole season (outside of the podium only once, 19 wins and 2 P2s early in the season) and I will also let Daniel Ricciardo aside because he only raced during 7 race weekends (score points in only one race after coming back from injury).

Now, Sergio Perez, because people have been seeing similarities between 2023 and 2024, and with reason.

Last season, he had 4 podiums in 5 race weekends (including 2 wins, 3 if we include the Baku sprint). Then he DNFed in Monaco, got a P4 and a P6. After that, things got better with 4 podiums (5 with the Austria sprint). He finished the season with one Sunday podium and 2 DNFs in the 8 remaining rounds.

In 2023, Yuki Tsunoda was in the points 6 times (7 with the sprint in Interlagos) for a total of 17 points at the end of the season. He DNFed two races that he could start and one that he had to quit during the formation lap (Monza). His best result was a P8 (achieved twice, in Austin and Abu Dhabi). Qualifying wise, he went 8-10-4 for Q1-Q1-Q3.

After 9 rounds in 2024, Yuki already has more points than in the entirety of 2023 and he’s been in the points almost as many times (5 so far in 2024). He’s also already beaten his best finish with 2 P7s and has been to Q3 almost twice as more (7 so far in 2024 against 4 in 2023). The improvement is blatant and I do wonder if those results are being acknowledged and rewarded to their right value. Nevertheless, I am still personally excited to see what is going to come out of him during the rest of the season.