Red Bull 2024, Ricciardo “earns points”
On the track that had sealed the break between Daniel Ricciardo and Red Bull on a human level, in 2018, redeemed the spark. Strange laps that F1 and life enjoy taking: of course, on the weekend in Mexico City five years ago the farewell ofHoney Badger it was already official, but that pole position (the last so far of his career) had almost annoyed the Red Bull top management and especially Helmut Marko. Fourth place in qualifying for AlphaTauri – ahead of Sergio Perez – and seventh place in the Grand Prix now make Ricciardo a strong contender for a Red Bull seat in 2024.
According to the contract, the position belongs to Perez. And for now it is also on a practical level. The Australian, however, put other doubts in the heads of Marko and Chris Horner. Ricciardo certainly earned a lot of points in a weekend that the Red Bull team principal described as exceptional.
Horner’s words
“It was fantastic to see Daniel perform so well, it fully confirmed why we brought him back to AlphaTauri just before the summer break. I think he was great in Mexico, fighting against a Mercedes. If it hadn’t been for the red flag, he probably would have finished even higher. It was a great performance from him, for sure he looked like the Daniel of old“.
“You can tell he is relaxed and confident. He arrived in Mexico City fully motivated after a difficult weekend in Austin, where he was returning from injury“, has continued. “I think Daniel brings them a lot of experience. AlphaTauri previously had two inexperienced drivers in the car, his arrival has given a clearer direction to the engineers, and I think the team is benefiting from it“. Ricciardo, who replaced Nyck de Vries starting from the Hungarian Grand Prix, had little space to show his qualities again: an injury suffered in PL2 at Zandvoort put him out of action for two months. And, after suffering a 6-0 partial from Yuki Tsunoda, he evened the score in the comparison with his teammate.
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