Christian Horner half-heartedly admits that Daniel Ricciardo was not favored to replace the ill Sergio Pérez
The team principal of Red Bull declared that the team would have "drawn a name from a hat" among the available drivers to replace Sergio Perez if he had remained ill throughout the weekend.
Does Daniel Ricciardo have anything to worry about? Christian Horner’s statements during the press conference on Friday are quite surprising. While Sergio Pérez was sick on Thursday, the Red Bull Racing team manager stated that the team would have randomly drawn a name from a hat among the available drivers to replace him. And this, even though Daniel Ricciardo is the official reserve driver for the Austrian team.
During a press conference of AlphaTauri’s director, Franz Tost, and CEO Peter Bayer, the former did not rule out the possibility of Daniel Ricciardo driving for AlphaTauri next season, suggesting that Red Bull’s junior drivers may not be ready to be promoted to an F1 seat just yet. However, Christian Horner stated on Friday that it is still too early to know where Ricciardo will be next year.
« Daniel is under contract for the year. He will drive our car for the first time after the British Grand Prix. He is obviously a world-class driver. He has won seven Grand Prix races in his career so far (8 Grand Prix races, editor’s note). Therefore, I think the first thing to do will be to assess how he performs and what his motivation is, and from there, it’s a question for AlphaTauri to decide their choices for the following season », said Christian Horner.
“We didn’t recognize Daniel Ricciardo.”
The Briton also mentioned the return of the Australian to Red Bull, with the team not recognizing him after his two-year stint at McLaren. « When he first arrived after Abu Dhabi last year, it was a bit of a shock because we didn’t really recognize him as the driver who had left us a few years ago. » Daniel Ricciardo left Red Bull at the end of the 2018 season to join Renault in 2019 and 2020, to everyone’s surprise.
Christian Horner however adds that the Australian seems to have rediscovered his passion. « He has worked hard on the simulator, he is now extremely competitive in what he does in the virtual world. We will see if this translates into the real world, even if it’s just during a tire test (after Silverstone, NDLR). We will have an idea of his performance level, » he concludes.
