George Russell namechecked amid Red Bull’s ‘much bigger picture’ decision

Christian Horner namechecked George Russell as a potential future option for Red Bull F1’s driver line-up as he was grilled over the team’s decision-making.

Red Bull are currently evaluating whether to replace Daniel Ricciardo with reserve driver Liam Lawson for the final seat at RB alongside Yuki Tsunoda in 2025.

There has been growing speculation that the swap could happen in time for next month’s United States Grand Prix, with Ricciardo potentially contesting his final F1 race in Singapore this weekend.

"These things are under constant review and there is obviously a much bigger picture other than just Daniel as we continue to look at all of our options as we move forward,” Horner told Sky Sports F1.

"There’s a natural break coming, with effectively almost a month’s gap to the next race. It’s only natural that you’ll take stock and consider all of those options for the final part of the year.

"It’s not to the detriment of Daniel. We know how he’s performed. We’ve got a lot of data, a lot of knowledge of where Daniel is. It’s a much bigger picture within the whole driver merry-go-round of what the future looks like.

"Inevitably, we’ll sit down during this three-week period of off time and consider all of those options."

Horner admitted Red Bull still have question marks over just how good Lawson is, despite the Kiwi impressing during a brief cameo for their sister team last season when Ricciardo was ruled out with injury.

“We’ve given a great opportunity to so many youngsters over the years. The Red Bull system, it does demand results and performance,” he explained.

“Of course, Max is delivering. Checo has been underdelivering this year. Last year, he did a good enough job to finish second in the championship and be constructors’ championship.

“We’re having to look further down the road. We’ve got some great talent, we’ve got Liam Lawson on the bench. We’re not quite sure, looking at the likes of [Franco] Colapinto and [Ollie] Bearman and [Kimi] Antonelli, is he at that level? Only time will tell.

“We’ve got Isack Hadjar in Formula 2, that’s been until recently leading that championship. We’ve got a very exciting young talent that I’m particularly excited about in F3 - Arvid Linblad. So we’ve got depth in our junior programme. We want to take time to consider what all of our options look like for the future.”

Horner insisted Red Bull would not be “afraid” to look outside of their driver pool, and intriguingly named Russell - whose Mercedes contract runs until the end of 2025 - as a potential option.

“George Russell is out of contract at the end of next year,” Horner added. “We’d be foolish not to take that into consideration. There are other talented drivers that could well be out of contract as well.”

Horner was also asked about rumours Lawson’s contract includes a clause which stated Red Bull would have to provide him a seat in either one of their teams for next year if they had failed to do by September 15 - or risk losing him altogether.

“I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of driver’s contracts,” Horner stressed. “There’s privacy between the company and the individuals.

“But Liam, the job that he did that he did for us last year was very impressive. Now we took experience over that because Daniel was our banker for if Sergio were to drop the ball.

“Daniel’s had a reasonable season but it hasn’t been a stellar year. Now the question is, is how good is Liam? Sometimes difficult decisions have to be made to get those answers.“We’ll sit down with those options available to us during this three-week gap.”