Editor's Desk: Did Red Bull have a better option than Perez?

While Red Bull boss Christian Horner has been vague in answering questions regarding Perez's future with the team amid his latest struggles to perform, Dr. Helmut Marko was more to the point setting the summer break as a deadline to decide the way forward.

Now it seems the way forward has been decided, as a report in Motorsport.com claimed the Perez will continue with the team following what they labeled "crunch talks", after earlier rumors that he may be replaced midseason, Nyck de Vries style, with Daniel Ricciardo, Yuki Tsunoda, and Liam Lawson all tipped a options to become Max Verstappen's teammate.

Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf quoted Horner saying: "Checo remains a Red Bull Racing driver, despite all the speculation of late. We look forward to seeing him perform on circuits where he has done well before."

And according to the BBC, a Red Bull spokesperson confirmed De Telegraaf's report.

Perez, over the Belgian Grand Prix weekend seemed confident about his seat with Red Bull, and while he had a tough race last Sunday, he insisted there was nothing to talk about regarding his future.

Perez started the race from second on the grid, but then dropped to eighth before being promoted to seventh after George Russell's disqualification, but when asked by reporters about his future, he was adamant there was nothing to talk about.

He said: "I think we have too much going on in the team and a lot of things that we have to focus on, and we cannot waste any energy with all this speculation.

"This is the last time I will speak about the future, so just to make it clear for everyone, I will not be speaking anymore. I will not answer any more questions about the future," a defiant Perez added.

While Marko admitted he expected more of the Mexican in Belgium, Horner simply pointed out that Red Bull need him to score points to help them in the fight with McLaren who are now pressuring them.

But with the saga of Perez's future behind us, let's have a calm look at whether Red Bull had a better option to replace him.

First, considering drivers not within the Red Bull organization. The best option would have been Carlos Sainz, who was announced as a Williams driver on Monday.

But that would have caused a problem. Sainz proved from his Ferrari foray that he will not accept the wingman role, and neither Red Bull nor Verstappen would want that.

As to Red Bull's driver pool, let's start with Tsunoda. Despite calming down a bit recently, he is yet to prove that he is reliable enough to be handed a drive in an RB20, especially when the team would want him to score points from the word go.

Furthermore, Tsunoda is part of the Honda package, and with Honda cutting all ties with Milton Keynes in 2026, does it make sense to put the driver they support at Red Bull? Doubtful.

As for Ricciardo, we have to be brutally honest. He is past his sell-by date, and is yet to take control of the intra-team fight with Tsunoda. He should be blowing him away and he is not.

He ran away from Verstappen once back in 2018, so who's to say he can take a beating from the Dutchman now?

As for Lawson, well he did impress when he replaced Ricciardo at VCARB in 2023, and he definitely deserves to be in an F1 car more than the Australian, but there is no guarantee how he performs at Red Bull.

Adrian Newey designs cars that are fast but are on a knife's edge, but no one knows if Lawson can handle them. He tested the RB20 at Silverstone after the British Grand Prix, but nothing was declared after that, not like Red Bull did with Ricciardo in 2023 before they confirmed him as De Vries' replacement.

Three options but none of them is convincing enough to make Red Bull decide to choose one of them to replace Perez with.

Perhaps it would be better to stick with what they have, and help their struggling incumbent get out of his slump, and maybe Red Bull realized that was the best way forward, hence the reports that Perez is staying.