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Daniel Ricciardo has made a candid admission that he knows the next two races are crucial and could perhaps be the most important races of his career. The Australian qualified P9 on Saturday and will line up alongside teammate Yuki Tsunoda on the fifth row.
The situation at Red Bull is something that has not been a secret for anyone involved. Sergio Perez's performances have not been up to par for a long time now and he only made it worse by crashing out of qualifying once again. Red Bull is possibly looking for a driver to replace the Mexican and for the moment there seem to be three contenders in the running. Both of the RB drivers Tsunoda and Ricciardo are in the running along with Liam Lawson who had a private test with the team recently in Silverstone.
According to reports, Lawson's performance impressed observers enough for Red Bull to be ready to give him the opportunity alongside Max Verstappen, though his lack of experience is a concern.
Ricciardo, it seems, is privy to what has been going on in the background, and after qualifying ahead of both Tsunoda and Perez, the driver did reveal that there was an element of him knowing that the next two races are the most important of his career. He told the media including Sportskeeda:
“I’ve told myself if I can do it, go fast. You’ve got two races to give it hell. These two races could be two of the most important. Of my, not only season but potentially career. I intentionally came into the weekend telling myself that these two races could be two of the most important.”
Talking about Qualifying, the driver said,
“I think a decent outcome. I definitely feel like we would have had something for the Astons without the rain in Q3. I don’t know if we would have got Fernando or what, but I definitely think we would have been in the fight.”
Daniel Ricciardo talks about the Yuki Tsunoda crash
Daniel Ricciardo also touched on Yuki Tsunoda's crash in Q3, where the driver's RB went airborne, leading to a red flag in the session. The Australian shared that some of the drivers had looked at that particular area earlier and had felt that the margin for error was going to be minimal.
Talking about the crash, he said,
“A few of us on Thursday saw that the edge (on the track) drops a lot. And we thought if you drop off a wheel there, it’s going to just skateboard and do literally what it did. So there’s just no margin for error on that corner. I’m not making an excuse for Yuki… that corner, you just have no margin. Small mistakes obviously have big consequences.”
Ricciardo will be hoping to score a few points this weekend and try and stamp his case as the possible replacement for Perez after the summer break.
