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Why would Red Bull risk this? The simple answer is that they were racing for whatever reason. no Giving up on Perez is the easiest option ever.

The main consideration seems to have been whether Red Bull had done everything they could to return Perez to his strong early-season form, when he was regularly scoring podiums and finishing second in the championship.

In a review of the situation, Christian Horner and Helmut Marko – who have traditionally not hesitated to drop drivers – felt more could be done to support him, while Red Bull had so far hoped that Perez would suddenly improve again without changing anything.

So the priority becomes what needs to be done differently so that everyone can Expect Improve rather than just living in the hope of making progress out of nowhere.

What might change?

The first step will be to assess potential crew changes. Red Bull has done this before. When Alex Albon struggled in 2020, Red Bull replaced its race engineer and brought back veteran Simon Rennie, feeling Albon’s life was becoming more difficult than it should have been.

There were excessive complaints from Perez’s fans about his team, and it is believed that Perez himself demanded better support.

Changing parts of that support team is unlikely to change the situation, but if Red Bull feels that Perez needs a different voice in his ear or that he might benefit from a reorganisation of the way the team looks after him and his car, from an engineering perspective, they will at least try to provide that.

Then there’s the car itself. Perez clearly wasn’t comfortable with the RB20 for a long time.

It was difficult to judge specific issues because Perez had been on a slightly different specification to Verstappen in recent races, but in general both drivers shared similar reactions – that this car was slipping back into a narrower operating window as it was developed.

This seems to be taking a toll on Perez even more. If we look at his season from Imola in mid-May onwards, a season in which his results dropped sharply and McLaren began to regularly take points away from his Red Bull, there is a clear link between Perez’s struggles and Red Bull’s further upgrades.

Some new parts had arrived in Japan a month earlier, when Perez was still doing well, but the Imola upgrade and beyond seem to be most closely linked to the car’s behavioural issues. Is that the cause? It’s impossible to say for sure. But Red Bull is willing to look into it.

Remember, Verstappen has been critical of the car’s development of late, so Perez is not alone in his dislike of the direction the RB20 has taken.

Recently, the new front wing has seemed to give Perez a better feel, but the situation is too short-lived to prioritize upgrades around what he needs. Instead, the easiest troubleshooting option is to undo some of the upgrades and find a car that Perez is more comfortable with.

Does this mean a return to what the car was like in China in mid-April? That may be a stretch. But the suggestion is that Red Bull He is Willing to prioritise Perez’s confidence over the theoretically faster car’s specifications.

If Perez can get close to 100% capability out of a car with slightly less potential, it could be enough to get him back into contention more often.

The summer break is a good opportunity to look at this, on both sides of the lockdown, rather than making random changes in the middle of the weekend.

Interference from elsewhere?

You don’t need to look far to find wild speculation that this was in fact due to interference from Formula 1, Liberty Media, and/or Perez’s long-term backers, amidst panic about the financial impact this could have on the upcoming Mexican Grand Prix and fear that Perez could really be dropped and out of Formula 1 for good.

All of these parties were certainly concerned about the consequences of Perez’s exit. Perhaps they tried to have a say in the matter. But there is no evidence that this influenced the conversation between Horner and Marco, and it was only very loose speculation that was treated as fact.

Red Bull is focused on winning two world championships because it has huge sporting and financial incentives.

Even if it happened in a desperate way, such as if Greg Maffei or Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim personally pledged to pay the difference between finishing first and second in the constructors’ championship – and honour the bonuses owed to the 1,600 people at Red Bull Racing who work so hard to win those titles – it would not cover the reputational damage and sporting losses caused by defeat.

One reason these theories have gained widespread acceptance is that Red Bull allegedly informed Verstappen’s camp on Sunday evening that there would be a change in plan. So something must have happened to cause the plan to change suddenly. But some believe this is not true.

It is possible that Horner and/or Marko were leaning towards a change but no one was informed and their meeting on Monday after the Belgian Grand Prix was always an opportunity to discuss it properly and reach a final decision.

How safe is it?

After news of Perez’s retention emerged on Monday, the nature of his exemption has been thrown into doubt. Will Perez continue to drive the car for the rest of the season? Red Bull has left itself room to manoeuvre.

The timing is important for two reasons. There’s an argument that Perez has just bypassed a set of tracks he’s had problems with in the past – remember, he suffered the same horrific mid-season period last year too.

He may have been through worse, and now he has some tracks coming up that Red Bull believe will bring out the best in him, with Azerbaijan and Singapore having been the scene of Perez’s previous victories.

So, this would be the worst possible time to let him go, because then Red Bull and Perez would have suffered all the bad things, the lost points, having failed to provide better support to help him, all before he has had a real chance to produce some of the peaks that Red Bull know Perez is capable of producing.

The flip side is that if it doesn’t work now, it never will. That’s the second reason why this series of races is so important.

It is unusual for Formula 1 to have an autumn gap in its calendar after the Baku and Singapore races. This is another opportunity to pause and consider whether there has been any change, and perhaps also an opportunity to clarify the championship picture further.

There are no guarantees at the moment that Perez will be 100% fit to drive the car for the rest of the year. He will just continue to drive after the summer break.