Sky Sports F1 pundit and former racing driver Karun Chandhok believes that Christian Horner and Red Bull are taking a major risk in not signing a potential race-winning driver, such as Carlos Sainz, to partner Max Verstappen next season.
The debate over Verstappen’s future has calmed down and the Dutchman is set to remain with the team for 2025 at least, but the identity of his team-mate remains up in the air with just three races remaining in 2024.
Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda are both strong candidates after impressing in the VCARB set-up, while Franco Colapinto has been touted as a left-field candidate after scoring points in two of his first six starts as an F1 driver with Williams.
Sergio Perez is also still battling to retain his seat. He heads into the Las Vegas Grand Prix without a podium in his last 16 races, although the lucrative sponsorships that follow him around, combined with his existing contract with the team, make it difficult for Red Bull to oust him.
All four options have pros and cons, but none are proven race-winners on a consistent basis. Speaking to Express Sport, in association with Betway, Chandhok gave his thoughts on Horner’s next steps.
“I have run out of patience trying to read the Red Bull situation,” he said.
“There seems to be so many layers upon layers, it’s just really complicated, and I have given up trying to read or predicting what they are going to do.
Personally, I would’ve just signed Carlos Sainz when he was first available before he signed for Williams.
“He is a guy who was freely available, no contractual ties, you know he is going to be very fast so I would have signed him in the summer, but they chose not to.
Now I don’t know what they are going to do.
“The other thing is, if Max slips down the stairs and lands on his head and ends up in hospital, they have got themselves in a tough situation because have they then got a driver line-up that can take on Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren? I’m not sure, and that’s the risk that they have got.
They have a lot of eggs in one basket at the moment.”
Red Bull have short-term problems to address too. Heading into the season-ending triple-header, they trail Ferrari by 13 points and McLaren by 49 points in the Constructors’ Championship standings. A third-place finish would cost the Milton Keynes-based outfit in the region of £15.5 million ($20m).
