Ricciardo battling ‘underestimated’ driver for Red Bull seat

Marko said Red Bull had not considered swapping Ricciardo with Perez, at least not yet, and indicated Ricciardo could be fighting Tsunoda for the seat for 2024.

“(Perez) is second in the world championship, so it would make no sense to want to get rid of him now,” he told Dutch publication De Telegraaf.

“Also at Silverstone, his race was good, but he needs to improve in qualifying.

“For Ricciardo, we also have to see first how he compares to Tsunoda. I think Yuki is underestimated by many people. The AlphaTauri is not the easiest car to drive, but Yuki has proven that it is possible to get good results.”

Tsunoda, a 23-year-old from Japan known for his sweary rants on team radio, is responsible for both of AlphaTauri’s two points-scoring finishes to far in 2023.

Marko said a lack of improvement from de Vries was the main reason behind his mid-season sacking.

After scoring points on a stunning F1 debut at last year’s Italian Grand Prix while deputising for the ill Alex Albon, de Vries – the 2020-2021 Formula E World Champion – was signed to make his full-time debut at the start of the season.

“We expected him to be at least equal to his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda this year, but that was not the case,” he said.

“Actually, he was always three-tenths of a second slower. We didn’t see any improvement.”

Dr Vries has been involved in several clumsy incidents, and was often only racing Logan Sergeant in the second Williams for last place at Grands Prix.

“He is 28 years old, has a lot of experience, and has also been able to gain a lot of knowledge as a test driver in various Formula 1 cars. You can’t compare him to a young rookie in my eyes,” Marko said.

“At the end of April in Baku, he started the weekend well and I thought he was going to perform better, but then he crashed again. He, unfortunately, didn’t do one super lap that we were amazed by.”

Mid-season firings are not uncommon in F1, particularly for the two Red Bull squads. Having said that, drivers are usually given until the summer break, which this year comes after the Belgian Grand Prix in two races time.

Marko said the team couldn’t afford to wait until then.

“We had to do something. Why should we wait and what do two more races matter if you don’t see any improvement? Nyck is a very pleasant guy, but the speed just wasn’t there.”

Ricciardo’s fastest time in his tyre test with the senior Red Bull team at Silverstone would have been enough for him to start second for the weekend’s British Grand Prix, having not driven an F1 car since last December’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, his final race with McLaren.

Marko said his times were competitive on each of the three tyre compounds he tested, which was all he needed to do to ensure he was shoehorned into de Vries’ seat.

The AlphaTauri squad lies plum last in the constructors standings with just two points. 

Considering the bottom four teams – AlphaTauri, Haas, Alfa Romeo and Williams – are all separated by only nine points, a strong points finish or two from Ricciardo could be all the side needs to lift it back into the midfield.

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