Daniel Ricciardo almost misplaced his seat at Pink Bull’s second System 1 workforce a lot earlier within the season, Christian Horner has revealed.
The Pink Bull workforce principal mentioned their motorsport guide Helmut Marko lobbied for RB to exchange Ricciardo after the Spanish Grand Prix in June.
RB confirmed final week Ricciardo won’t return to drive for them within the remaining six rounds of the season. Liam Lawson has taken his place.
Horner mentioned Ricciardo has proven flashes of potential since returning to F1 at RB final 12 months, however suffered an absence of consistency.
“He began the season roughly,” Horner instructed the official F1 channel. “Miami was a weekend of two halves, the Friday and Saturday morning was incredible, and it seemed just like the Daniel of previous defending towards Ferraris and out-driving the automobile. However then the Saturday afternoon and Sunday have been disastrous.
“Even round Barcelona, Helmut wished him out of the automobile, and there was already a number of strain on him there. However by the point we bought to Montreal, it was truly expensive previous Jacques Villeneuve bought him correctly wound up, giving him a tough time. And it undoubtedly fired him up as a result of the best way he drove the automobile that weekend, he grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and put collectively a really robust race weekend.
“So I mentioned give Jacques a name each grand prix for the remainder of the 12 months, as a result of no matter he mentioned, it undoubtedly labored.”
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Pink Bull initially introduced Ricciardo again to F1 as a possible future substitute for Sergio Perez at their prime workforce. Regardless of Perez’s persistent underperformance this 12 months, which has seen Pink Bull lose its lead within the constructors’ championship to McLaren, Ricciardo hasn’t proved as much as scratch, mentioned Horner.
“I’ve completed my best to purchase as a lot time within the automobile to permit him to ship,” he mentioned. “In any other case he would have been out of the automobile after Barcelona.
“All of the drivers are beneath strain to ship. However the purpose that Daniel was in that automobile was to get himself again right into a place to finally be there to select up the items if Checo didn’t ship. And the issue was they each had points with kind at various occasions.
“Checo began the season very effectively, very strongly, and Daniel was struggling. After which clearly as Checo misplaced kind, Daniel discovered a little bit of kind, but it surely was by no means compelling sufficient to say, ‘okay, we should always swap the 2 drivers’.”
Horner confirmed Lawson’s promotion to RB had been completed with a view to him doubtlessly becoming a member of Pink Bull sooner or later. “This goes past [RB], it encompasses Pink Bull Racing,” he mentioned.
“Clearly we’ve bought a contract with Sergio for subsequent 12 months however you’ve all the time bought to have an eye fixed out when it comes to what comes subsequent. Is that going to be Liam or do we have to look outdoors the pool or will one of many different juniors step up within the fullness of time whether or not it’s Isack Hadjar or Arvid Lindblad.”
Nonetheless he admitted he hopes that subsequent 12 months “Checo finds his kind and rediscovers the form that he was in in the beginning of the 12 months and nothing, nothing adjustments.
“However as we all know on this enterprise, two weeks is long-term.”
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