Red Bull's Top Target and How F1 is Closing In on the NFL | From the Paddock Ep. 6

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Hello and welcome to From the Paddock where we talk the ins and outs of Formula 1 and the wider motorsport world. My name is Alex Harrington >> and I'm Lydia Mi.

[00:00:08]>> Yep. Coming up on this episode, Red Bull is reportedly targeting Oscar Pastri as Vistappen replacement. So we'll get into how realistic that idea is, the idea behind it, and plus who could fill the resulting space at McLaren. Then we'll break down what a performance clause is in F1 before moving on to how F1 is challenging the NFL in being the most lucrative sport in the world. That's all to come. But to [music] stay up to date, make sure to subscribe on YouTube, catch us on newsweek.com, and follow along on all of your favorite podcast providers.

[00:00:44]Red Bull is thinking about life after Max Vstappen. A report from motorsport.com reads that the team has identified Oscar Pastri as their top target if the Dutchman leaves, retires, or more likely takes a sabbatical. Now, there's speculation behind this as well.

[00:01:03]It's said that Carlos SCS is being seriously considered to a return to McLaren. Uh so today, let's talk about this. We'll talk about the whole chain, the domino effect.

[00:01:14]Why are Red Bull even having to consider this? Well, I mean, Max has had his worst start to a season since 2018.

[00:01:22]>> So, after four rounds, he's only got 26 points. He's P7 in the driver's standings. Obviously, that's not the standard he's used to in recent years.

[00:01:33]He's been hinting at retirement for a little while. I mean, obviously, he was a bit skeptical going into the new regulations to stay to say the least.

[00:01:40]Um, and it's safe to say at this point he's not too bothered or thrilled by the new regulations.

[00:01:47]>> Yeah, I think that's fair.

[00:01:48]>> So, he's been kind of hinting that maybe he will retire at the end of the year.

[00:01:52]Some people are saying he could just be taking a sbatical, >> which also I mean, why wouldn't you just leave the door open if you could come back? Totally.

[00:02:00]>> But also, he's been doing GT3 and he's obviously really enjoying that.

[00:02:04]>> Yeah. So, >> he's excited by it. You can see when he does when he goes to those race weekends, you can see it in his face.

[00:02:09]He's smiling.

[00:02:11]>> Yeah. And he, you know, puts little comments here and there like always proper racing and all of that little jabs where he can. Um, but with that in mind, I think Red Bull would be silly not to explore other avenues. I mean, in recent years, it's been the maxappen show and they need to have two drivers and they need to have something to fall back on. So, it makes sense.

[00:02:34]>> Yeah, it's only it's a realistic idea, isn't it? And I think a lot of teams will be going through the same thing. A lot of teams will have a plan B.

[00:02:41]>> Yeah.

[00:02:42]>> Um uh so look, why Pastry? I think that's a big question. And I think why not? Pastry is contracted to McLaren through 2027. Some reports even suggest that it's 2028, but contracts are worth about as much as they as the paper they've written on. Like really F1, if you want out, you can get out somehow.

[00:03:08]He's currently P5 in the championship, 41 points, podium in Miami, but McLaren, they seem to be up front. They seem to be doing pretty well, but things maybe aren't all, it's not all happy days at McLaren. Mark Weber, Pastry's manager, he is from Red Bull. He knows their story. He knows the team inside out and he knows how they operate. And it's been talked about for a long time that Weber is not exactly happy about the whole situation between Lando Norris, Oscar Pestri, and how the Papaya rules are being managed. He obviously is the manager of this racing driver. He wants Pastri to be the number one driver.

[00:03:49]Obviously, every manager wants that for their drivers. It's not necessarily a realistic idea, but also Pastri, you know, he's a talented talented fast driver. He's been in the championship what, like it's been a few years now.

[00:04:03]When did he when did he come into F1?

[00:04:05]It's been so long. Maybe 20 uh three I believe.

[00:04:10]>> And straight away he was on it. Like you could tell that there was a bit of a bit of a learning curve.

[00:04:17]>> But um on his second full year, he was fantastic. Like absolutely like you could just tell that he was a driver that quickly matured. And he's wanting because of that level of talent. He knows how good he is. He wants to be a number one driver at McLaren. That's not necessarily going to happen. Like I said, they've got papaya rules. They've got Lando Norris who's been with McLaren for however many years. He has grown beside McLaren. And Zack Brown racing McLaren racing CEO and London Norris.

[00:04:46]They have a great relationship. Like I said, they've been together for so long.

[00:04:49]So there's no there's really not a chance where Pestri will will be the number one driver. I just don't think it's a realistic idea for him. So, where does he look? He looks where there's going to be a gap and that is potentially Red Bull. Um, Red Bull have a second driver issue.

[00:05:08]That is there's no doubt about that.

[00:05:11]Whether that's through the car or other reasons, no one will ever really know.

[00:05:15]Second drivers have said plenty. Um, so we'll take what we can from that. Isaac Haj is currently the second driver.

[00:05:22]>> He is fantastic as well. He's in his second year now. a really really great driver. He proved himself at Racing Bulls, but if Pestri comes in, he knows he's going to be the top the the number one driver likely. He knows because he's been fighting for a championship. He's had that experience. He's got more experience than Hajger. Um despite again both drivers being absolutely fantastic.

[00:05:45]>> Um and also he brings knowledge and intelligence from McLaren, another championship fighting team. So Pestri would bring a lot of value. Um and what's really interesting here is uh Red Bull have always for the most part wanted to promote from within. They really loved their driver development program and it's it's proven Vettle Vestappen fantastic drivers all came through that program with Helmet Marco now gone. Helmet Marco was the guy who was in charge of that. He managed um Max Vstappen's career for so long. he recently retired um and he was the guy who was really pushing for the for the Red Bull development program to be their source of drivers. Now Lauris is in charge. That's not actually it's likely not going to stay that way. He is interested in getting talent regardless of where it's from.

[00:06:42]>> I think you'd be silly not to consider from outside of your own pool of drivers as well. Like you've just got to be smart about it.

[00:06:50]>> Yeah. And if there's someone like Pestri looking for a seat, and I think it's it's worth just saying again, like this isn't um it's not like huge breaking news. Pestri is moving. Every team, like we mentioned at the beginning, every team's going to be looking for a plan B.

[00:07:07]Every driver is also going to be looking for a plan B. You know, they want to stay in the sport regardless. They want to be in a better team. They want to be the number one driver.

[00:07:14]>> And this could all just be conversations within management. It might not even be something that's on Oscar's radar at the moment.

[00:07:21]>> Totally. We'll see. Yeah, totally. So, the question is then, if Oscar does move, what does McLaren do? And where do the signs rumors come into this?

[00:07:30]>> Yeah, I mean, let's be clear, they are just rumors at the moment.

[00:07:34]>> Yeah, this is signs. The sign stuff is speculation at its finest.

[00:07:39]>> Yes, but there are links there and it could be possible. obviously signs drove for McLaren back in 2019 and 2020 before he moved to Ferrari. He's kept his relationship going with Zack Brown and they, you know, you see them golfing together as I why is golf so big in F1?

[00:07:58]That's my side question. Anyway, um but he did very well at McLaren. They've got a strong relationship. Obviously, from kind of a commercial point of view, which we know Zack Brown is very good at, >> bringing back Carando, which was a fan favorite duo, would obviously be great kind of marketing for the team. Also, Carlos Science is a fantastic driver. He deserves to be in a top team and a top car. Um, so it's it's kind of it's definitely possible and you can see where the links lie. I mean, he teamed up with Norris recently for that quadrant video as well where they were testing carts from the past 100 years.

[00:08:43]>> Amazing. And it went so viral.

[00:08:44]>> Yeah. Gave the fans what they wanted.

[00:08:46]>> Exactly. And it just proves your point like if something is if something wrong is going to happen at McLaren, it's like Brown is going to like find everything he can to make the most of a bad situation.

[00:08:56]>> Yeah. So the question is then if this speculation is true, should signs go to McLaren? Is it a good move? And I'm going to start with you. I've got my opinion. So let's let's start with your opinion.

[00:09:09]>> Okay. Yes, it would give fans what they want or you know, a little pocket of fans what they want. But I just don't think it would look good for him. And I know you've got to be selfish and you've got to kind of take it on the chin if you do something that's not quite PR friendly or whatever, but he obviously got kind of replaced at Ferrari cuz Lewis Hamilton came along. He then spent ages looking at all of his options, deciding where to go. It was like this huge thing. Then he signs with Williams and he's all about, I believe in the long-term project of this team. It's a long-term plan, but I'm really interested and invested in building with a team kind of like Lando did at McLaren to then drop all of that. If McLaren came knocking, I just think what are you doing? [laughter] No.

[00:10:02]>> Yeah. There's there's a lot of um I mean the the whole PR push behind Williams was amazing, wasn't it? James Val is like a guy that we all can't help but trust.

[00:10:12]signs really bought into that idea in the project behind Williams. And um and I think I think you're right. It would kind of look like it was all a bit of a not a lie, but it didn't mean as much as he said it did.

[00:10:26]>> Yeah. And also, like you said, Lando is going to most likely be the number one driver at McLaren. I don't see the point in him.

[00:10:35]>> I think SCS could give him a run for his money. Yeah, but signs jumped ship and went to Ferrari >> as you would.

[00:10:42]>> Yeah, but >> it's the scooter rear. He wants to look, you've seen the car. You've seen the cars in his garage. I'd moved to Ferrari from McLaren.

[00:10:50]>> But Lando's He's loyal. He's been there with them for so long. He is like Charlair at Ferrari. He is their poster boy at this point. And I don't see the point of him moving for it not to be a number one driver. But then also I just just stick it out at Williams. And how amazing would that be bringing them back to being championship winning form which everybody wants at such a historic team?

[00:11:19]>> Just stay. Just stay.

[00:11:20]>> I don't agree.

[00:11:20]>> Just stay.

[00:11:21]>> I don't agree. I think look, Williams sounded great. This year was supposed to be their year. I mean, not we didn't actually think they were going to win the championship, but they were supposed to be up there.

[00:11:32]>> It's still early days.

[00:11:33]>> Yes, but they started on the back foot.

[00:11:35]It's going to be a long time until Williams actually gets anywhere. Not that I don't believe they will, cuz I love the team and I believe in James, just like Carlos Science says he does.

[00:11:44]But Carlos is a talented driver. He's really, really good and he's worthy of a championship winning car. We saw how good he was at Ferrari. Arguably, he was out driving who stayed at Ferrari.

[00:11:56]Obviously, is Ferrari's poster boy, poster whatever you want to call it. And and both very talented drivers, taking nothing fromlair. He's very, very good.

[00:12:04]Obviously, as you can see in his fight against Lewis Hamilton, but as a driver, you are looking to give yourself the tools to win a championship. That is what they all want and they should be able to move where they want to give them give themselves that opportunity. I think um if a team isn't doing enough for a driver, which Williams isn't right now.

[00:12:28]Williams is not doing enough for their for their two very good drivers. Carlos should be looking elsewhere. Screw what he said. Screw what he said. It's a PR.

[00:12:37]It It's all PR. Drivers just want the fastest car. And um you know, I'm sure they have I'm sure he has a really great relationship with James Val and the team. That is separate to him wanting to win. Now, it would be different if it was Carlos not driving the Williams um to his full potential. That would be a very different story. But we saw last year podium finishes from signs, podium finishes in a car that was not worthy arguably of a podium. I mean, obviously got a podium, so it was worthy of a podium, but you know what I mean. He outdrove the car, but the team is not out caring the driver. That is what I'm gonna say. And I think because of that he has every right to go to a faster championship potential winning team and that is McLaren.

[00:13:27]>> Of course he has the right and yeah he's what 30 or 31 so I I can understand it.

[00:13:33]>> Oh overly we can see who's more loyal here. It's me.

[00:13:38]>> Yeah. [laughter] >> Look let us know down in the comments what you think. Very interested to know if you think I mean obviously this is all kind of speculation but let us know if you do think it's a it would be the right move for signs. Really interested in what you have to say.

[00:13:55]>> In the first part of this podcast we kept saying performance clause but what is a performance clause and why does almost every top driver have one?

[00:14:03]>> Yeah, this is a really simple concept.

[00:14:06]It's purely just a clause in the contract that lets a driver leave their team if certain performance metrics aren't met. And it means that if, for example, if there's a change in regulations, which they have been recently, it means that if the team doesn't have the expected performance, a driver like Max Fappen can pull out and go to another team. It's how the top drivers protect themselves from being stuck long term in a team that maybe has gone downhill, maybe can't get over something. Um, and and it allows the drivers to um almost lower it allows the teams rather to almost lower how much they're paying a driver because they don't have to give more money just in case something goes wrong.

[00:14:53]>> Yeah. But also some of these drivers have such long contracts. Yeah.

[00:14:57]>> That it would be silly not to cover themselves like you say for regulation changes or no one can really predict how the order of the constructors is going to land year on year especially with a perform um especially with a regulation change. So it it makes sense but it's also interesting because it goes the other way as well. So teams can have performance clauses in place. So if a driver isn't meeting their expectations, they can get rid. I mean, we've seen that with Red Bull so much over the last few years with their second driver just going >> coming and going all the time. So they they go both ways.

[00:15:37]>> Exactly. Yeah. And look, let's talk about it specifically sticking with Red Bull, sticking with Vstappen. His contract runs out the end of 2028 and it was managed by Helmet Marco when when Marco put it together. um he put in a reported exit clause and specifically for this contract again this is reported it hasn't been confirmed by Red Bull um this year the threshold is reportedly P2 in the drivers championship by the summer break so that means if Max is not in a minimum of P2 by what summer break is like August time um if he's third or lower he can leave No, no, no questions asked. He can leave. This, however, is an option. So, if he is within that um within that clause, he doesn't have to activate it. Um he just gets the option to. Now, for 2027, at that point, we'll be 2 years into these new regulations.

[00:16:38]Reportedly, it's even crazier. So, he needs to be leading the championship by the summer break. And if he's not doing that, then he can go, you know what, guys? I've had enough. I'm going to move to GT3. going to move to a bit of sports car racing.

[00:16:50]>> Yeah, it it's quite um scary when you think of it like they've got to really have like we talked about earlier a backup plan in place because like quite quickly it can unravel and then they're stuck in that situation.

[00:17:04]>> Exactly.

[00:17:05]>> And we've seen it before as well. I think Hamilton reportedly had a similar clause at McLaren in 2020 2012. Yeah. um which he triggered when he moved to Mercedes and then Alonzo reportedly had one with Ferrari in 2014 when he went back to McLaren. So we've seen it before and it does happen.

[00:17:25]>> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It does prove actually. You know, we keep saying this is not massive news. It's almost just like confirmation of news. It's like these backup plans do happen a lot and this just proves how easy it is for a driver like Max of his caliber to remove himself from a team which is why teams need to be doing this. But it does also work the other way doesn't it?

[00:17:51]>> Yeah. I mean we saw that with McLaren and Daniel Ricardo as well. He was with the team for quite a long time but it was reported that it was a mutual decision but I mean it wasn't actually.

[00:18:02]I think Ricardo recently said that he was let go and then he went back to Red Bull um kind of within their family. Um and you know McLaren took that decision because they he was crashing all the time. They had to limit their risk and you know he just wasn't bringing in the points and they had to just cut ties.

[00:18:21]>> Yeah. It's just a it's just a an easy way of these teams and these drivers protecting themselves. F1 is volatile.

[00:18:27]We all know that. Like we said, the contracts are worth as much as the paper. Then last week, sponsorship intelligence firm Sponsor United published their annual F1 report. Now, total team sponsorship revenue in 2025. Listen to this. It hit $2.54 billion. That's up 22% on the year before. That means F1 is now the world's second most lucrative sports league by sponsorship revenue and the gap to the NFL, the leaders in this pack has shrunk from $360 million to just 120 million.

[00:19:10]Talk me through Lydia and me the big numbers.

[00:19:12]>> Yeah, some of these numbers are insane.

[00:19:15]So F1 team sponsorship revenue in 2025 was 2.54 billion. like you say up 22.1% yearonear. The NFL is 2.66 billion and the like you say again the gap closed from 360 million to 120 million in a single year. That is between F1 and the NFL. The English Premier League was third and that's on 2.02 02 billion and F1 has now passed the EPLL so the English Premier League despite having onetenth of the number of the teams.

[00:19:50]Yeah, this is where it gets really interesting cuz look, F1 has 10 teams in 2025. Now they obviously got 11 with Cadillac. The NFL has 32 teams which means the average F1 sponsorship sponsorship deal is roughly about $6 million.

[00:20:05]Um, for NFL, the average sponsorship deal is roughly $745,000.

[00:20:12]So, F1 has it on quality of sponsorship.

[00:20:16]Um, and a deal, I mean, that's proven by the fact that the deals is eight times more valuable than an NFL deal on average. And this means, you know, F1 isn't competing on volume. It's actually competing on on quality, on the price per asset, which is unbelievable.

[00:20:34]>> Yeah. So with F1 they attract sponsorships from across various different sectors. So the technology sector contributed 769 million which is up 40.8% yearonear.

[00:20:47]>> That's AI isn't it?

[00:20:49]>> Yes.

[00:20:49]>> That's totally AI.

[00:20:50]>> Yeah. So AI companies are the kind of new growth driver in F1. We've got Google Gemini, Dinatrace, we've got >> Claude >> Claude Perplexity is specifically with Hamilton. There's the financial services which is $456 million.

[00:21:08]Then you've got apparel, apparel and accessories which is $219 million. And then hotel, restaurant, leisure which another is another fastest growing category which is up 62.4%.

[00:21:19]You know you've got Marriott with Mercedes, Hilton with McLaren. Like there's just so many different sectors.

[00:21:27]It's a really broad kind of spectrum.

[00:21:30]>> Yeah. And I think that just that comes with F1 being like a traveling circus.

[00:21:34]And you know, it's not just travel, it's technology. It's it's all of these things. Interestingly, Mercedes has the highest revenue with a reported sponsorship revenue of $558 million despite it not being and obviously it's leading this year, but this was last year. This is 2025. It wasn't really anywhere. I mean, it was at the top obviously, but not like it wasn't like Red Bull McLaren levels. Um, so that's really interesting. But is it the most storied? No. I'd say that's, you know, teams with like Ferrari, McLaren, Williams even. Um, obviously Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren do round out the top four. Unsurprisingly, H is at the bottom of this table.

[00:22:16]>> Slightly savage.

[00:22:17]>> No, I mean, they just haven't got the history. They haven't agree.

[00:22:20]>> They haven't really got the branding either. they need that's a different conversation but has you know they haven't even branded themselves as a US really a US team um and the commercial gap between the top teams and the bottom teams uh obviously it mirrors where they are kind of in the standings as well I wonder where Alpine is um but so why why is this happening you know we've talked about this a lot it's drive to survive it's the fact that F1 is pushing into the American market which is one of the uh most valuable markets in the world.

[00:22:52]Um, and that's come because of Liberty Media. Liberty Media joined F1 in 2017.

[00:22:57]Well, purchased F1 in 2017. Uh, they then really pushed the expansion using social media as marketing using things like Drive to Survive. And a 52 million strong US audience says it all. What company, what organization would say no to that sort of to those eyes on their products? and the F1 movie as well. Like we saw a lot of new sponsorships and partnerships coming from that.

[00:23:25]>> Just being a sponsor of a fictional team and a fictional car >> is kind of crazy if you think about it.

[00:23:33]>> Yeah.

[00:23:34]>> Yeah.

[00:23:34]>> Yeah. No, totally. Expensify and Shark Ninja, they were huge sponsors of this fictional team that people would see like on screen for like 2 and a half hours. Yes. We saw them going around a track. That's it's totally unreal to me.

[00:23:48]I mean, branding has been huge in films, obviously, like the Barbie movie, the worst car brand, the worst car promotion in the world. I hated that so much. But we'll get on to that. I'll we'll talk we'll talk about that after the podcast.

[00:24:04]But, um, look, [snorts] it's a it's a big opportunity for F1 obviously. And uh and interestingly Eddie Q from Apple he said look there's also the fact that the market is expanding. Sorry not the market the viewership is expanding. It's different types of people these younger people. It's people who are more streaming more technology orientated.

[00:24:25]Huge value there. Huge value. Um now uh sponsor United has said that drivers now rival teams as media platforms. And again we talked about this last video.

[00:24:38]Charlotte Clair. This is how he's able to buy a yacht worth how however many millions of dollars. Um, he added 6.3 million social media followers in a year. And that was the biggest gain the grid saw from a social media point of view. Hamilton has 60 million total followers across his platforms. That's the biggest reach out of any driver.

[00:24:57]>> Unsurprising.

[00:24:58]>> Unsurprising. Pastri grew 65.9% in a year. That's the fastest growth rate.

[00:25:04]And then this is really interesting.

[00:25:06]Sergio Perez, he wasn't even in F1 in 2025. Now, we were talking about him a lot because of Cadillac, but he [laughter] had the most driver endorsements in 2025 with 31 brand deals. 31 brands were like this guy.

[00:25:23]>> But he also had the time, [laughter] like if you think about it that way, he didn't have a seat. He had the time on his hands to think, hm, I probably need to have some income this year. So, like, let's get on the phone and sort some stuff out. Didn't he partner up with KitKat? Was that before?

[00:25:43]>> Cuz it was like, take a break.

[00:25:45][clears throat] >> That's fantastic.

[00:25:47]>> I hope I haven't just made that up cuz they really missed something there. If that is not true.

[00:25:50]>> No, I mean, you know, Sergio Perez, that's why he was kept by Red Bull for so long as well. He brought in so much value from sponsorships. Being um anx the that backing of that community is is incredible. Um, look, I'm in the wrong job. I think that's fair to say. I should have been an F1 driver. I think we can all >> too little too late for that one, I'm afraid.

[00:26:11]>> Maybe. Maybe. Look, um F1 is growing substantially. There's no doubt about that. The money is huge. Let's just hope that the regulations and that the sport itself, the thing we're all watching, can match that value. Uh a quick one before we go. We're keeping the F1 breakdowns going every Monday. And that's where we answer your questions.

[00:26:32]So, if there's anything in F1 you've always wanted to know, anything in F1 you want explained, please drop it in the comments and we will pick it up and answer the questions the best we can.

[00:26:42]And while you're down there, like, subscribe, find us on newsweek.com and your favorite podcast providers. I've been Alex Harrington >> and I'm Lydia Mi.

[00:26:51]>> Thank you so much for watching. We'll see you in the next episode.

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