19/07/2023
NEWS STORY
As Daniel Ricciardo eyes a potential return to Red Bull, Christian Horner insists that he is not currently thinking beyond the end of this season.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of Nyck de Vries' firing, the fact is that AlphaTauri is a business competing in the most competitive of sports, and if it is to convince its owners and sponsors to keep funding it the Faenza-based outfit had to prove its determination to improve.
Step forward Daniel Ricciardo, definitely one of the most popular drivers in the business if not one of the most committed.
Getting the call to replace de Vries, Ricciardo is naturally eyeing a potential return to the 'big team' to partner former teammate Max Verstappen, however Horner is keen that the Australian takes it one step at a time.
Whilst proving himself at AlphaTauri, Ricciardo has an obvious carrot in the form of Sergio Perez who has been the source of much frustration in the Red Bull camp this season.
"At the moment there's only something in place until the end of the season," Horner tells the Beyond the Grid podcast. "So there's no thoughts or expectations beyond that.
"We've loaned him to AlphaTauri to the end of the year. Obviously, our drivers are going to be Max and Checo again next year. But it's always good to have talent in reserve.
"I think Daniel is viewing AlphaTauri," he adds, "he firmly wants to be pitching for that 2025 Red Bull seat. That's his golden objective. And by going to AlphaTauri, I think he sees that as his best route of stating his case for 2025."
Other than dr Vries' own shortcomings, it was Ricciardo's performance at last week's Silverstone test that sealed the Dutchman's fate.
"What impressed me the most when I went up to have a look at the test was, bearing in mind he hasn't driven this car, hadn't been in a car for seven months, within his third or fourth lap he was down to a time that was within a second of what our drivers were achieving," says Horner. Then on his first proper run, as it were, on tyres that were comparable, you could see his confidence was growing and growing and that first lap on probably what was his seventh lap of the day would have put him on the front row of the grid. So it was hugely impressive."
"I was just pleased to see that he was still able to operate at that level," admits the Briton. "You could see, I mentioned to him 'that would have put you on the front row of the grid', and you could see almost the relief in his eyes and almost like the pressure release off his shoulders that he could still do it, that he wasn't going mad and the old Daniel was still there.
"And then his long runs were very impressive and the work that he did for Pirelli was absolutely on the money.
"Before the test, there was some element of discussion with Daniel to say, look, if this goes well, would you be up for driving an AlphaTauri because things aren't quite going as we'd hoped with Nyck," he admits. "Would you be up for that challenge? And he said 'Yeah, absolutely'. He was prepared, if you like, to take a step backwards to try and take two steps forward."
Rather than prolong the situation over the summer break, Horner admits that it was considered best to act immediately.
"It was becoming obviously a difficult situation for Nyck, but there was a high expectation on him because whilst inexperienced in Formula 1, he's obviously a very experienced driver.
"I think there was a general feeling that Nyck wasn't quite hitting the mark. And then the question was what are the options if we were to switch things around? And from a Red Bull perspective, the most interesting option for me was to see how Daniel performed. So that was the decision that was made. It all happened pretty quick. And here he is for the Hungarian Grand Prix."