Red Bull engineer says they’d have to rebuild a ‘lot of cars’ if 77-DNF driver partnered Max Verstappen

Red Bull have hired Liam Lawson as Max Verstappen’s new teammate for the 2025 season. This comes following the departure of Sergio Perez, who reached a separation agreement.

While Red Bull would never have expected Perez to beat Verstappen, they decided that he was too far away to merit another season – even though he’d signed a new contract in June. The Mexican finished a combined 575 points behind his teammate in his final two years.

For context, Verstappen only accumulated 437 points en route to winning this year’s championship. With just 11 races of experience, even Lawson may recognise that a close intra-team battle is extremely unlikely, this year at least.

There were very few flashpoints during the Verstappen-Perez relationship. The Dutchman refused to heed team orders at the 2022 Sao Paulo GP, perhaps as retaliation after his teammate’s controversial Q3 crash in Monaco secured pole position.

But for the most part, they appeared to enjoy a close and stable relationship. It remains to be seen whether Lawson, who clashed with Perez and Fernando Alonso during his six-race stint at Racing Bulls last year, is as compliant.

Red Bull briefly shopped the external market of potential Perez replacements for 2025. But in the end, they reverted back to tradition by looking in-house.

Paul Monaghan says Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen wouldn’t give a ‘millimetre’

Speaking on DAZN’s ‘Decoded: Fernando Alonso’ show, Red Bull’s chief engineer Paul Monaghan assessed what a partnership with Verstappen might look like. He worked with the Spaniard at Renault when he won his first Grand Prix in 2003.

Monaghan suspects that Alonso and Verstappen would be prone to collisions given their shared ‘ruthlessness’. And he also thinks it would be difficult for the team to manage the chaotic radio channels.

The 57-year-old would ‘take his hat off’ if Alonso, who has likely signed his last F1 contract with Aston Martin, could match Verstappen. No driver has posed a true threat since Daniel Ricciardo (2016-2018).

Alonso is a two-time world champion and a 32-time Grand Prix winner. With 401 race starts (and 77 DNFs), he’s the most experienced F1 driver ever.

“We’re going to have to make a lot of cars because they’re not going to give each other a millimetre,” Monaghan said. “I imagine they’d be fast, fair, ruthless. The radios would be quite busy, there would be enough respect between the two of them.

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea. Honestly, if Fernando at this stage of his career can fight with Max, I take my hat off. It would be great to see it.”

Paul Monaghan once hinted that Fernando Alonso ‘threw a chair’ at him

This hypothetical could have become a reality. Christian Horner says Red Bull held talks with Alonso during last year’s driver market.

The former Ferrari driver was approaching the end of his Aston Martin agreement, and Horner pondered whether an extraordinary collaboration with Verstappen was possible. In the end, they decided against it – and Monaghan’s comments may explain why.

Alonso has comfortably beaten many of his teammates in F1, including Lance Stroll, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa. But he’s also been involved in some acrimonious internal rivalries, perhaps most notably with Lewis Hamilton at McLaren.

Monaghan hinted that Alonso ‘threw a chair’ at him once, though he only referred to him as ‘a certain Spaniard’. Perhaps his combustible nature has cooled in his 40s, or perhaps it would only take a driver like Verstappen to bring it out.