Is Colapinto the answer to Red Bull’s $20 million Perez headache?

Sergio Perez’s ongoing struggles in Formula 1 have left his Red Bull bosses facing a $20 million headache over what it does with him going forward.

Where once his lack of scoring was not much more than an annoyance, and only had an impact on the Mexican’s own drivers’ championship positions, things have got much more critical now that McLaren and Ferrari have stepped up.

Red Bull is quickly facing up to a reality that, with Perez not delivering the points hoped for, it now risks finishing third in the constructors’ championship this year if it does not quickly turn around the speed of its car.

Ferrari’s resurgent form, having taken back-to-back wins and double podiums in Austin and Mexico, has helped the Maranello squad join McLaren in overtaking early-season frontrunner Red Bull in the teams’ standings.

McLaren is still out in front on 566, with Ferrari 29 points back on 537 – leaving Red Bull picking up third place on 512.

While Red Bull’s gap to those ahead of it is not mathematically insurmountable, with a lot of points still to play for, the reality is that Red Bull is barely holding on to the tailcoats of F1’s current two pacesetters – so has little hope of turning the situation around.

The current car performances are also why it is understood that there seems little to gain in pushing for a driver change before the end of the season, because nobody is going to be able to step in and be guaranteed to save its plight enough right now.

Ending up behind McLaren and Ferrari will have major consequences for Red Bull, because it well understands that F1’s prize money system is based entirely on constructors’ championship position. So, a third place finish to end the 2024 campaign, as opposed to winning it as looked highly likely in the early phase of the campaign, will be a big financial blow.

And should it come to the point of analysing why exactly – with championship positions worth around $10 million each – it has ended up with $20 million less than it had hoped for, it will have to look at the points that Perez left begging throughout the campaign.

It is this element that will also certainly dictate what Red Bull does when it comes to deciding who Max Verstappen’s team-mate will be next year.

Right now, all indications are that Liam Lawson will get the nod if he continues doing what he is doing. The New Zealander…