Red Bull's 2025 F1 driver decision plan after Helmut Marko comment at Azerbaijan GP

Red Bull won't make a final decision on their 2025 Formula 1 driver plans until at least after the Singapore Grand Prix, Mirror Sport understands.

Team adviser Helmut Marko said in Azerbaijan at the weekend that an announcement is likely between the upcoming races in Singapore and Austin. And that comment has led to speculation that a final decision has been made.

Some reports have claimed that Liam Lawson's promotion to a race seat has been sealed. But those claims are wide of the mark - while the Kiwi driver is certainly in a strong position to earn his first full-time place on the F1 grid, Red Bull's plans are not yet set in stone.

And their actions during the summer break prove that the expected outcome is not always the one that materialises. After all, Sergio Perez's career looked to be on life support already when he put in another limp performance at the Belgian Grand Prix - only for team principal Christian Horner to tell staff a day later that he would keep his seat.

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But even that was not a guarantee that the Mexican would make it to the end of the current season. In particular, Red Bull were looking to the current Azerbaijan-Singapore double header as an opportunity for their driver, who only penned a contract extension in June, to show that he remains the right man to partner Max Verstappen at the top team.

Should he be replaced, it will be a clean exit for Perez - he will not be demoted to the VCARB sister team. But he has already done his chances of avoiding that fate good with a strong performance over the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend.

On his most successful F1 track, he out-qualified Verstappen for the first time all year and spent the vast majority of the race in the podium positions - until a penultimate lap collision with Carlos Sainz scuppered both their chances of a top-three finish.

Perez has also won in Singapore before and will head to the island country with renewed confidence after his exploits in Baku. Another such performance will shift the pressure even further onto Daniel Ricciardo, who never threatened the top 10 on Sunday after a disappointing qualifying, and who hasn't scored a point since the summer break.

Should Red Bull decide to replace him with Lawson, it is not yet clear whether they would consider a mid-season swap, or give the Australian until the end of the season before bowing out. Speaking to Mirror Sport in July, Ricciardo said he had not spoken with any other teams on the grid, such is his determination to save his Red Bull career.

He said: "This does feel like home for me and the place where I belong the most. It's like tunnel vision, trying to make this work. Yes, it might not and maybe I won't have a seat, but I haven't really allowed myself to think that. Maybe that's risky, but I'm not really interested in having chats with other teams because I feel like that will derail me from where I'm trying to go."