Ricciardo 12 races to earn Red Bull return
Australian can banish the memories of his Mclaren misery with unexpected Alphatauri opportunity
Daniel Ricciardo arrived at Mclaren in 2021 with the aim of super-charging the team’s revival. But the eight-time race winner left his three-year contract a year early. Yes, he secured their first victory in nearly a decade at Monza in 2021, but was trounced 122 points to 37 by team-mate Lando Norris in their final year together.
It appeared to be a baffling and sad final campaign in a glittering career, albeit one in which he never challenged for the biggest prize. He failed to sign a race contract this year, instead rejoining his old team Red Bull as a reserve driver. In the months since, his activities have been almost solely promotional.
Yet in a rapid turnaround, he is back on loan at Red Bull’s sister team Alphatauri after the underperforming Nyck de Vries was dropped just 10 races in. The Australian has been given an unlikely Formula One lifeline.
Speaking yesterday ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, it was clear how he sees this opportunity: as a way back to the seat he held at Red Bull from 2014 to 2018. He called a return there “the dream”, but also said: “There’s no point in me thinking about that.”
He is right on both counts. After he was confirmed as Red Bull’s reserve driver he was clear that his aim was to get back in a front-running team. And why would anything else be the case?
What changed, then? Ricciardo admits that he soon realised that returning to F1 in a top team was unlikely. “I think also you need to be realistic at some point and say, if I want to get back to, say, a Red Bull seat, it’s going to take a process and a path. This for me is the best path at the moment.”
With Sergio Perez’s form turning from mighty to miserable in the past three months, that path is a little clearer than it might have been. A Red Bull return would certainly be an F1 fairy tale but the reality is that Ricciardo has 12 races to save his F1 career and maybe, just maybe, regain his old seat. But is that even a possibility? Just about.
There are a few things against him. Ricciardo says that getting back behind the wheel to “show his true self ” excites him, but one thing holding him back is the car.
His new team-mate Yuki Tsunoda says it is probably the slowest on the grid. Indeed, it has scored just two points all year and is a far cry from the dominant RB19 that he drove in a test at Silverstone last week.
Before that recent Red Bull test he had not driven a racing car of any kind since the end of last year. Yet there was obviously something in his performance in the RB19 that convinced Helmut Marko and Christian Horner – not an easy task – which took them from “excitement and curiosity” to genuine belief in him, as he describes it.
Of course, Ricciardo did not become a bad driver overnight. With some space between that miserable final year at Mclaren, he says he has been able to process that experience a bit more, hinting that he got into a rut and started overthinking things.
First, though, Ricciardo must restore his reputation, and that is a significant task. To be in the Red Bull conversation he must be matching Tsunoda’s pace within three or four races and then beating him consistently on Saturday and Sunday by the final few rounds. The Japanese driver has had a fine season in a poor car, but he is not a good benchmark for that second Red Bull seat. Beating him is the very least Ricciardo needs to do.
But Ricciardo’s destiny is not in his own hands. Any hope of a Red Bull return relies on a) Perez continuing to fail and b) the lack of other available drivers who are better options.
What if he does find some of his old form and becomes a contender? Ricciardo acknowledged Red Bull’s “unconventional” approach to driver hiring and firing – he has been the beneficiary this time. Might he be again? Loaning him as a reserve driver came with no risk given Alphatauri’s standing, but putting him back into a race seat shows that they have backed him already.
These next 12 races are a free hit for him, but if Ricciardo misses then it could all be over – for good this time.