No surprises at all that RBR has a termination clause. They’d be stupid not to have one. As for Lawson being promoted straight into the main team… whilst I wouldn’t be surprised if they do try that, recent history (i.e. Gasly, Albon) should give them pause for thought. Lawson is a talented young driver - maybe not quite “Piastri” talented at this stage, but talented nonetheless - but I’d hate for RBR to burn yet another young driver before they had a chance to properly establish themselves in the category.
Marko has been touting either Lawson or (surprisingly) Tsunoda for the seat if Perez doesn’t fix his form slump, but even though it may not be a long term play, I can’t help but feel that RBR has a Daniel-shaped hole in their driver lineup that could be filled by a certain “Daniel” who’s currently in the fold. Say what you will about him, but he has shown over the years that with a good car under him, he’ll get results. We shouldn’t forget that he dragged Renault to podiums they didn’t deserve after they finally gave him something with which to fight. He scored McLaren’s only win when they had an average car and the opportunity presented. He may have been outshone by Tsunoda for the first part of this season, but they are more even now and to be fair, I suspect the RBs would be worse off if not for the input he’s given to the design and engineering team. Even Yuki readily acknowledges that. If RBR are serious about salvaging the Constructors’ Championship, they really do need to decide whether they want to gamble on a rookie or place trust in an experienced hand. And if they went with Ricciardo and the results aren’t there, then they can easily switch to Lawson or Tsunoda.
