Daniel Ricciardo’s Components 1 season may have been over as early as June, based on Crimson Bull Racing’s crew principal.
Ricciardo was axed by Crimson Bull’s sister crew, RB, following final month’s Singapore Grand Prix with New Zealand younger gun Liam Lawson to drive the ultimate six race weekends of the yr.
The Australian, who gained seven of his eight F1 victories with Crimson Bull between 2014-2018, seems prone to have pushed his final grand prix.
Nevertheless, Crimson Bull’s crew principal Christian Horner has advised the F1 Nation podcast there have been calls to axe the Australian from the RB cockpit after June’s Spanish Grand Prix.
“He began the season roughly, then Miami was a weekend of two halves; the Friday and Saturday morning was implausible and it appeared just like the Daniel of outdated, defending in opposition to Ferraris, out-driving the automobile, however then Saturday afternoon and the Sunday have been disastrous.
“Even round Barcelona, Helmut [Marko, Red Bull motorsport advisor] needed him out of the automobile.
“There was already loads of strain on him there, however by the point we bought to Montreal it was really pricey outdated Jacques Villeneuve who bought him correctly wound up by giving him a tough time.
“It undoubtedly fired him up as a result of the way in which he drove the automobile that weekend, he grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and put collectively a really robust race weekend.”
Ricciardo certified a lowly 18th for the Spanish Grand Prix and positioned fifteenth within the race.
The Australian returned to the Crimson Bull household in 2023 as a reserve driver after being moved-on by McLaren with a yr remaining on his contract.
Ricciardo took over from rookie Nick de Vries within the sister crew [then called AlphaTauri], earlier than breaking his wrist and lacking a number of races whereas Lawson crammed in and did a terrific job.
Horner mentioned Crimson Bull’s hope was for Ricciardo to be able to step-up alongside world champion Max Verstappen if Crimson Bull Racing’s second driver Sergio Perez continued to falter.
“I’ve finished my highest to purchase him as a lot time within the automobile to permit him to ship, so in any other case he would have been out of the automobile after Barcelona,” Horner mentioned.
“All of the drivers are underneath strain to ship however the cause that Daniel was in that automobile was to get himself again right into a place to in the end be there to select up the items if Checo [Perez] did not ship.
“The issue was, they each had points with kind at various occasions.
“Checo began the season very nicely, very strongly, and Daniel was struggling.
“Then, as Checo misplaced kind, Daniel discovered a little bit of kind nevertheless it was by no means compelling sufficient to say, ‘OK we must always swap the 2 drivers’.”
Lawson now has the chance to cement himself as a Components 1 driver for the remaining six race weekends within the 2024 season.
Horner mentioned he needed Ricciardo to have the ability to see out the season, however the six-race block on the finish of the yr offered the chance to arrange for the long run.
“In an ideal world that will have been what we might’ve finished, however from a broader perspective, we’d like solutions for the larger image when it comes to drivers,” he mentioned.
“It is the right alternative to line Liam [Lawson] up alongside Yuki [Tsunoda] to see how he performs over the following six grands prix.”
