Purple Bull motorsport guide Helmut Marko has defended the staff over criticism of its dealing with of Daniel Ricciardo’s dismissal final week.
4 days after Ricciardo’s tearful departure following the Singapore Grand Prix, his RB staff introduced he had been changed by Liam Lawson with quick impact.
Throughout the occasion, RB staff principal Laurent Mekies mentioned the staff would consider their drivers’ efficiency after the race weekend. Nevertheless Ricciardo’s manner after the race indicated he already knew his destiny, and Lawson revealed he was instructed the staff’s plan two weeks earlier.
Marko defended Purple Bull’s dealing with of Ricciardo’s exit, saying the announcement of his departure was postponed till after the race “for compelling causes associated to industrial agreements.”
Ricciardo “was knowledgeable in good time,” Marko added, “and – to place it in his personal phrases – he’s at peace with himself.”
Marko justified the staff’s determination to drop Ricciardo, saying he was given the possibility to reveal he was fast sufficient to interchange Sergio Perez at Purple Bull, however his performances have been lower than scratch.
“He was given a second probability that nobody else would have given him,” Marko instructed the Purple Bull-owned publication SpeedWeek. “And that was below the premise {that a} return to Purple Bull Racing was potential if he carried out nicely sufficient.”
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Ricciardo returned to F1 with RB final yr, when it was often known as AlphaTauri, however was compelled to overlook 5 races after sustaining a wrist damage. Though he was dropped earlier than the top of his first full season, Marko mentioned his time on the staff was “all the time supposed as a stopover.”
“However the mandatory efficiency solely got here twice, as soon as with a fourth place within the Miami dash [race] this yr and final yr in Mexico,” he mentioned. “In any other case that pace was not there, and the consistency was not there both.
“The entire efficiency that may have justified a promotion to Purple Bull Racing was lacking. However that was the entire level of the entire thing.”
Marko mentioned the staff didn’t perceive why Ricciardo was not on the similar degree right this moment as he was in 2018, when he left Purple Bull.
“If we knew why the efficiency was not so good as it needs to be, we’d have achieved all the things we might to vary that,” he mentioned. “However the identical killer intuition was merely not evident. He was well-known for his uncompromising overtaking and braking on the final level. However that was not the case both.”
Three laps earlier than the top of the Singapore race, which most drivers accomplished with a single pit cease, Ricciardo was introduced in for a 3rd change of tyres. This was extensively seen as a profitable ploy by Purple Bull’s second staff to take the bonus level for quickest lap away from Max Verstappen’s championship rival Lando Norris. Marko mentioned Ricciardo’s quickest lap “was a becoming farewell efficiency.”
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