Red Bull gamble backfires after 'baffling' driver signing

Red Bull's driver signing gamble may have backfired after their decision was labelled as 'baffling' by a Formula 1 pundit.

The Milton Keynes-based outfit kicked off their 2025 campaign last weekend at the Australian Grand Prix, and came away with a mixed bag of results.

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Defending world champion Max Verstappen could not overhaul title rival Lando Norris to claim the first win of the year, but was pleased to come home in second ahead of Mercedes' George Russell.

The Dutchman has a new team-mate in Liam Lawson - who got the nod over former Racing Bulls colleague Yuki Tsunoda - but the 23-year-old endured a weekend to forget in Melbourne.

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Having failed to make it past Q1 during qualifying, the Kiwi did not finish Sunday's race after crashing out in the treacherous conditions.

Hopes remain high within the Red Bull garage that the team can bounce back from last season's disappointment of losing their constructors' crown to McLaren.

However, after Lawson's less than impressive first outing, questions are being asked over why Red Bull can't recruit an elite second driver to challenge Verstappen on a consistent basis.

BBC F1 pundit Andrew Benson believes that the team's reluctance to bring someone in who could potentially unsettle Verstappen is a significant cause for concern, with Perez's stint at the team proving that this gamble backfired.

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"They don't want a driver who can challenge Verstappen. They want someone who can provide enough support to get in the mix with his rivals and take points off them, easing Verstappen's path to the drivers' title and the team's to the constructors' championship," he wrote in his BBC Q&A.

"The problem is that they keep picking second-string drivers to do a job that only drivers of a higher quality are able to do.

"For this season, they could have had Carlos Sainz - a driver who actually very marginally out-qualified Verstappen when they were team-mates at Toro Rosso back in 2015.

"But they rejected him on the basis of the potential tension it would cause in their team. Instead, they picked Sergio Perez - a decision that baffled many people in F1.

"It backfired on them when the Mexican had a second poor season, and they had to pay him off.

"Now they have picked Liam Lawson, a rookie with only 11 races' experience and of as-yet-unproven quality."

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