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Perez has two more races left before the summer break to convince Red Bull that he will not undermine their chances of winning the constructors’ championship this season.

After a poor run of results, in which he has finished no higher than seventh in the last six races and scored just three goals in that period, Perez is on 137 points, five places behind Max Verstappen in the world championship at a time when McLaren and Mercedes are putting more pressure on Red Bull than at any time in this era of rules.

Rumours suggest this would leave Perez vulnerable to a performance clause in his contract that was added when he signed the new 1+1 deal earlier this year, allowing Red Bull to terminate his contract if he was more than 100 points behind Verstappen at the break.

The ability to do so and the choice to do so are two different things, and Perez retains a degree of control. But Red Bull is considering its options, and Lawson’s testing in the 2024 car last week, despite the limited time it had as a “film day,” is a sign of its intentions if Perez is not up to the task.

If Perez is ruled out, a driver with a wealth of race-winning experience will suddenly be on the market. Regardless of his form at Red Bull, he will attract interest from teams such as Audi, Alpine and Williams – and he certainly wouldn’t be the first to flourish elsewhere after a gruelling time against Verstappen.

His availability would be a huge curveball in the negotiations between these teams, with Perez potentially beating out someone like Valtteri Bottas and taking a seat somewhere in lower midfield.

Red Bull or Audi for Lawson?

A simple decision by Red Bull to drop Perez and promote Lawson would put the 21-year-old in the dominant Formula 1 car of this rules era. And that’s a fantastic opportunity.

This would serve Red Bull’s need to secure him a Formula 1 seat before September, or allow him to become a free agent by 2025.

He should who But if that happens, Lawson will have an interesting alternative: Audi.

There has been contact between Sauber/Audi representatives and Lawson’s team as he is seen as a serious back-up option should long-term target Sainz join another team, which has looked increasingly likely in recent months.

It’s a good position for Lawson, although with all due respect it says something about the Audi project that he’s the kind of driver who’s seriously involved in the mix there.

At the moment, Lawson looks to have the best chance of the rest of the rookies to start. Formula 2 champion Theo Bourchier is another outside option for Sauber, who have supported him for several years, but he looks like a last resort.

At Alpine, current reserve Jacques Doohan’s chances of staying appear to depend on whether Sainz and Bottas go elsewhere.

So what about Sainz?

Sainz has been the cork in the bottle for months, taking his time to decide on his next move since learning at the start of 2024 that he would lose his Ferrari seat to Lewis Hamilton.

Perhaps the volatility of the driver market since then confirms Sainz’s patience. Some seats are slowly disappearing, but the best seat of all may still be possible – more so than previously thought.

After Williams beat Audi to Sainz, Alpine re-emerged as a credible prospect (at least in the eyes of the Sainz camp). But then came words of encouragement from Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, and the hint that 17-year-old Formula 2 rookie Kimi Antonelli might not be quite ready for a Mercedes F1 seat next year, especially if the team’s current trajectory puts it in the championship battle zone in 2025.

In such circumstances, a short/medium-term deal with Sainz would be a huge win for Mercedes, and it would be natural for Sainz to look for the least bad option among the alternatives available to him.

That’s why his position is frozen again. If Mercedes are to give Antonelli more time in F2 and more private testing in F1 to properly assess him, and if Alpine in particular are willing to wait to see if Sainz is available, his position looks more likely to continue into the second half of the year.

What will Williams do?

Sainz appears to be slipping away from Williams’ grip, at least in the timeframe the team wanted, with team principal James Vowles unwilling to risk losing good alternatives by sticking with a driver he may ultimately reject.

Although Williams remains very keen to sign Sainz, it has also begun to prepare for life without him. Discussions have been ongoing with other drivers anyway, and Bottas, who started his F1 career with the team, seems likely to return – although the possibility of a return by Mercedes protégé Antonelli, similar to George Russell’s three-year spell at Williams, cannot be ruled out.

Perez’s entry into the market could make Williams think twice, but if the team wants to go the experienced route, he is by no means a clear upgrade over Bottas, who in addition to being a faster driver probably has the advantage of knowing the team well.

Bottas has been a contender for all the teams that have vacant seats, but the current Sauber team doesn’t seem to want him and doesn’t want to stay. Haas wants Ocon, and Alpine – apart from being a high-risk option given their recent messy history – seems intent on Sainz and has Doohan as a backup option. Williams ticks many boxes for Bottas and could be a good long-term project to commit to.

For Williams, with Ocon (who didn’t seem like the preferred option there anyway) moving to Haas, the situation now seems simple: wait for Sainz, secure Bottas while he knows he’s still capable, or take Antonelli on a multi-year “training” at Mercedes.

The decision may depend on Vowles getting a clear idea of ​​Sainz and Antonelli’s timetable. If the Mercedes situation isn’t going to be resolved anytime soon, it wouldn’t be surprising if Williams and Bottas could reach an agreement before the summer break or sometime in August.

Who misses?

All of this certainly spells the end for Magnussen (Haas), Zhou Guanyu (Sauber) and Logan Sargent (Williams). But it is not unlikely that there will be another victim in the driver market too.

It’s also worth noting that Fowles still leaves the door open to letting Sargent go midway through the season. But that certainly won’t happen unless he gives the team an early start by signing him in 2025.

This would almost certainly only be an option with Antonelli, if Mercedes decided to. Do He deserved to graduate from Formula 1 but not directly to his own team.

It has been suggested that Ocon could be a contender for the job given his strained relationship with Alpine, but he would need to be linked to Williams in 2025 for that to make sense.

It is not thought to be Williams’ preferred option, and if he is really on the verge of reaching an agreement with Haas for 2025, this would clearly derail the deal anyway.

But for the sake of argument, let’s say the most chaotic choices (in terms of their implications) were made across the board, with Perez dropped in favour of Lawson, Mercedes signing Sainz and putting Antonelli at Williams.

That would leave three vacancies at Haas, Alpine and Sauber/Audi, providing an opportunity for either a Magnussen or Doohan driver, depending on which team ends up filling the vacant seat after all.

And that level of uncertainty is exactly why the silly season that started unusually early still hangs in the air as we approach the time of year when it usually begins.