I read the Nextgen-Auto piece on Christian Horner’s book with the sim paused. For 2025 he wanted to replace Sergio Pérez, who had won races in each of the three previous seasons but whose form was, and I quote, “unrecognisable”. He thought of Fernando Alonso, who confirmed to him at Suzuka in 2024 that he wanted to race alongside Max Verstappen. Then of Charles Leclerc. And both times, Helmut Marko told him to forget it.
So I did what nobody at Red Bull did: I loaded both ghosts at Suzuka, behind Verstappen’s. Same setup, same car. In the sim, that’s flat out through the Esses for all three. Leclerc’s ghost, quick over one lap as Horner writes, finishes a tenth and a half back. On paper, the second car is filled.
What isn’t modelled is Horner’s line: “But somebody somewhere had decided it wasn’t the right decision for Red Bull.” “Somebody, somewhere.” There’s no parameter for that in the menu. I looked. The wind, at least, has a direction.
After that, the seat went in-house to Liam Lawson, then to Yuki Tsunoda. Horner thinks Lawson should never have been promoted with 11 F1 races behind him. Eleven races is not many laps of data, and the driver isn’t to blame: it’s the test window that was short. The book also mentions a visit from Carlos Sainz to Horner’s home about 2026. A fourth ghost. I haven’t loaded it yet.
Load Florian. He only needs one lap.
Nobody told me to forget it. Nobody called me either. The sim driver job exists. I checked. In theory.
It’s true, we checked: Nextgen-Auto.
