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Red Bull boss Christian Horner has addressed rumors about Daniel Ricciardo's future and said that the Australian has been given the opportunity, and now it's time for him to perform. Daniel was considered one of the best drivers in F1 in 2020. However, when he moved to McLaren in 2021, the graph nose-dived.
It all began with the partnership with Lando Norris, where the young driver completely dominated Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian was unable to adapt to the car under him, and that led to McLaren prematurely ending his contract a year early.
Daniel Ricciardo was then without any affiliation with a team before Red Bull came calling with the role of a reserve driver. With AlphaTauri struggling to get results out of Nyck de Vries, Daniel's impressive Pirelli tire test resulted in the Australian getting a seat on the team.
After a few impressive performances in 2023, the 2024 F1 season was supposed to be the showcase for Daniel Ricciardo, and if he showed that he still had the pace, he would have been promoted to Red Bull. With the performances not matching up to expectations and Sergio Perez already getting a 2-year extension at the team, that door seems to have closed.
After comments from Helmut Marko about the Australian's future and how he could be replaced by Liam Lawson, the question was pitched to Christian Horner in the pre-race press conference. The Red Bull boss said that the Australian has been given the opportunity and now it's down to him to use them and get the results. He said (via PlanetF1),
“I think anything regarding drivers are going to be dealt with in-house before we talk to the media about it. They’re all Red Bull Racing drivers and every Red Bull driver knows that there’s always a pressure, that there’s always a scrutiny but Daniel is in the seat and it’s down to him to make the most of that and then it’s always, as we see in Formula 1, things are always fluid."
RB boss praises Daniel Ricciardo
Daniel Ricciardo received heaps of praise from RB boss Peter Bayer, who credited the Australian's contribution to the team. While on-track Daniel has not had the kind of results that we've seen in the past, behind the scenes there are quite a few good things that have been attributed to Daniel.
His teammate at RB Yuki Tsunoda has been one of his biggest advocates on that front, as the Japanese driver has praised Daniel Ricciardo's ability to help build and fine-tune a car's performance over a weekend. Team boss Peter Bayer had quite a few positive things to say during the press conference. He said,
“Well, he certainly has helped us tremendously. Looking back last year when he joined the team, he brought a whole new energy and spirit into the team and he has been extremely helpful in supporting Yuki [Tsunoda]."
He added,
“Yuki has just stated that very recently, actually, that he still keeps learning from Daniel and it’s part of our job as as a mission from the shareholders to develop drivers."
Daniel's future is going to depend entirely on how he performs in the coming races. If the performance is up to the mark it's not an issue, but if there's a drop, he could lose out big time.
