‘Certainly no plans’
Daniel Ricciardo is back with the team with which he achieved his greatest successes in Formula 1: Red Bull Racing. He is only there for a role that undoubtedly hurts the Australian a bit, because the real work is not in it. Not in the future either, according to the words of team boss Christian Horner.
No doubt Daniel Ricciardo sometimes thinks back with pain in his heart to the moment he decided to leave Red Bull. After all, he sometimes rode for the win and could have achieved even more in the years that followed. Red Bull became champion with Max Verstappen and last year not only took the second driver’s title in a row, but also the constructors’ title. Fortunately, the departure from Red Bull was apparently amicable enough at the time to be allowed to come back, although there is little exciting for him next year.
Team boss Christian Horner confirms in the KTM Summer Grill –podcast that his former regular driver will only do support work next year and nothing more is in store. “We have absolutely no plans to use him for more than third driver.” There is not a word of Chinese in it. Sergio Pérez therefore has nothing to fear, as Red Bull CEO Helmut Marko previously suggested. Horner thinks that Ricciardo is under no illusions himself either: “I think he has lost his love for Formula 1 a bit. He has had a few very tough seasons. I hope that in this process (at Red Bull , ed.) find that love again a bit.”
Horner explains that next year Ricciardo will mainly be working at the factory in Milton Keynes. There he will carry out simulator work, which can of course prove invaluable to the team. He will certainly not be in the paddock all season, but ‘he will attend some races’. In the races he attends, he is ready to get in the car if Verstappen or Pérez are unable to do so for one reason or another. For the time being, that is Ricciardo’s only hope of getting back to work at Red Bull.
.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl