Red Bull Faces Crucial Decisions Before Summer Break?

Jul.29 - A much-needed summer break may now be looming for Formula 1, but Daniel Ricciardo says he will be leaving his "phone on".

Red Bull's patience with the struggling Sergio Perez now seems to be running out, with the Mexican sliding from P2 on the grid at Spa to P8 when he saw the chequered flag.

"That was not satisfactory from Checo," the energy drink brand's F1 consultant Dr Helmut Marko declared immediately after the Belgian GP.

Max Verstappen continues to lead the drivers' standings, but Perez's failure to come anywhere near the lead car's points-scoring ability recently has left Red Bull dangerously exposed in the constructors' table.

"We are now focusing entirely on the team standings," Marko insists. "McLaren has already made up ground. We need two drivers who can score points regularly," said team boss Christian Horner.

Perez's future is now dangling by a thread, with Red Bull's junior squad RB to put Liam Lawson and Ricciardo head-to-head during a filming day at Imola this week.

"Sergio had the chance to get a good result from second on the grid," Marko continued. "Unfortunately, he didn't succeed. Especially in the last stint, he completely collapsed.

"For us, the situation is that we also have to look at the overall situation for 2025," the Austrian added. "We have a certain number of drivers, and we have a concept.

"Of course, every result is important for Sergio, and finishing eighth after starting second is absolutely not what we expected," Marko told Sky Deutschland.

Marko said earlier at Spa this his first task after the weekend was to travel back to Milton-Keynes for key talks with Horner. "We will analyse everything and then make a decision," he confirmed late on Sunday.

It is believed Horner favours a promotion into Perez's seat for the experienced Ricciardo, while Marko is understood to prefer the promising rookie Lawson.

"I'll definitely leave the phone on," smiled Ricciardo when asked about the looming summer break. "You never know what will happen. I'm just trying to secure my future in the sport at the moment - so we're talking about next year.

"If there is any news, I'll make sure the phone isn't too far away. We'll see what happens," the 34-year-old Australian added.

As for Verstappen, he has not taken a firm position on what Red Bull should do about Perez. "I don't think that's our main problem now," the triple world champion said.

"Our problem is that we have to find laptime. We will carefully analyse everything that we have done."

Verstappen finished P5 on Sunday - boosted to P4 with George Russell's disqualification. "I think this was the maximum achievable," said the 26-year-old.

"The speed was reasonable, but not very good. From P11 without a speed difference, it doesn't really work."

Marko admits Red Bull has plenty of thinking and analysis to do as F1 heads into the summer break. "We need to look at the new parts we put on the car and analyse whether a smaller update package would have been better.

"We have to see if we're going in the right direction," he added. "Mercedes were nowhere on Friday, then they changed a few things and 'poof!', the car worked."

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