Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, Silverstone, 2018

Red Bull have made their case – Ricciardo

2018 British Grand Prix

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Daniel Ricciardo says Red Bull has laid out their case for him to stay at the Formula 1 team beyond the end of this season.

He is weighing up whether to extend his contract to stay at the team following their decision to switch from Renault to Honda power next year. Ricciardo said he is satisfied the team hasn’t made an “emotional” decision.

“I’ve obviously heard the team out more than once and they’ve given me good reason,” he told media including RaceFans at Silverstone.

“The important thing to understand for me why they’ve done it is it can’t just be purely on emotions like ‘ah, it’s gone [wrong] with Renault’, whatever, and we’re just doing it because we want to change.

“They’ve obviously done their homework and they strongly believe that it is a good thing, not just an emotional decision. They’ve done what they can to try and encourage me to make it happen.”

Ricciardo and Red Bull team principal Christian Horner have both indicated they intend to make an announcement before the summer break.

An exhaust problem put Ricciardo out of last weekend’s race. Asked by RaceFans about the effect retirements have had on his season Ricciardo said he hasn’t given up on getting into the championship fight.

“I think we’re doing pretty well considering we’ve only finished six out of nine. [But] doing alright is not enough to be there and I think especially because we are not dominating every race on every circuit we go to we need to finish more. Two were technical and one was obviously the incident with Max [Verstappen].

“We’ve got to try and finish more. I’m very likely going to have a penalty in Germany. The odds are against us but I still don’t think it’s impossible. There’s still too long to go to say it’s out.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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22 comments on “Red Bull have made their case – Ricciardo”

  1. My comment is not directly related to Ricciardo, but I do wonder if we will see Toro Rosso taking more unforced penalties this year as Honda use them as a test bed to accelerate development (for both reliability & performance) in the run up to 2019.

    1. The should imho. Honda needs to deliver next year and win (races at minimum) with RedBull. They cant afford another PR drama after the McLaren period (and the mid ’00 tbh)

      Therefore Honda absolutely needs up investments to churn out update after update now. This will mean penalties and points lost for Toro Rosso and so Honda will have to compensate them financially as well. But it had to be done.

      1. Ric’s drive for 2019 is far from done and dusted with LH VB and KR out of contract at the end of this year, who is doing what is still rumour and media speculation!!

    2. @phylyp Possibly. We shall wait and see.

      1. Which is why an experienced high mileage test driver like Hartley is there. Done huge development mileage for Porsche and help set up Mercedes simulator.

  2. I don’t know I just want to see some change in the line ups. I understand that is very likely for the big 3 to retain their current drivers with only Raikkonen-Leclerc swap the only realistic scenario but hey kimi is 39 he won’t drive forever.

    I started watching in the late 80’s and every summer was mayhem
    1988 Senna to Mclaren, Piquet to Lotus.
    1989 Mansell to Ferrari,
    1990 Prost to Ferrari, Berger to Mclaren, Piquet to Benetton.
    1991 Mansell to Williams, Alesi to Ferrari
    1992 Prost retires, Piquet retires
    1993 Prost to Wlliams, Berger to Ferrari
    1994 Senna to Williams.

    I miss the old days were teams were more adventurous.

    1. Leclerc to Ferrari is not relistic. Will not happen and I’m embarrassed for anyone who thinks it will.

      1. Realistic*

      2. Not dramatic at all this one.

      3. Totally agree ,this is a ploy by Ferrari for Ric to lower his price .

  3. Maybe it’s not an emotional decision, but it is their only decision. Ferrari and Merc (wisely) wouldn’t sell them a PU without unreasonable compromises, and they burned the Renault bridge fiercely and emotionally after the dramatic downfall going into the hybrid era. They’ve been looking for an out ever since they rebranded the Renault PU to a Tag Heur, which seems to me as passive-aggressive as it gets in these terms.

    But despite all this, I can’t imagine a better place for Ricciardo aside from Merc or Ferrari, which doesn’t seem at all likely at this point. I feel that the RBR chassis greatly enables those spectacular overtaking dives that he pulls off so well.

  4. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    5th July 2018, 20:19

    Unless Ferrari grab him to replace Raikkonen – which is unlikely, or Hamilton retires from Mercedes – which is also unlikely…

    He literally has nowhere else to go.

    1. Yes, don’t see why some people consider the option to go to teams like renault or mclaren (the latter of which ricciardo obviously refused), they are 1,5 sec off the pace, they need to show they can catch up before being considered, ricciardo said he doesn’t have a lot of time, so certainly a step back from red bull is a terrible idea.

    2. Renault.

  5. The younger generation of drivers might kill Ricciardo’s championship ambitions.

    Verstappen is the main man for Red Bull. He’s getting paid more than Ricciardo as Red Bull value him higher. He’s also got age on his side, so RB-Honda doesn’t need to be great immediately for Max.

    Ricciardo was a serious candidate to take over Raikkonen’s seat after his sensational win in China. However, since then Leclerc has been a revelation at Sauber, and it looks like Ferrari are going to promote him next year.

    I think Mercedes will also look inside when Lewis retires. Although the hype around Ocon has cooled down recently, he is much more convincing against Perez this year than last year. Mercedes also have 20 year old George Russell who is currently tearing it up in Formula 2.

    What other options are there? Renault? McLaren? All big risks.

    Verstappen, Leclerc, Ocon and Russell are all 20-21 while Ricciardo is 29. I predict that these younger drivers are going to take over Formula 1 after Lewis and Seb call it day, and Ricciardo might be crowded out and never get a real shot at a WDC.

    1. Well, it takes 2 to tango, and 20 to fill a field of racing cars. Of the 20 drivers now running only 7 have ever won a race, and only 3 of them are younger than 30, one of which is Ricciardo.
      Of the youngsters Verstappen is a race winner, Leclerc and Ocon are brimming with talent but without a podium and Russell hasn’t even raced a F1 car so far. All of them have their fair share of incidents.
      Case in point: in 2018 Ricciardo had 2 retirements due to technical issues so far while Verstappen had none, but Daniel still leads Max in the championship.

      I’m sad you don’t pay attention to the youngest driver in the field, a podium finisher at that; Lance Stroll.
      His immense talent is hampered by the badly performing Williams and the inability of the world to recognize his twitchy steering, dodgy track incidents and frequent radio laments as hallmarks of his ingenuity as a racing driver. Certainly he’d do better in a class leading car, even if that brings down the results of the team running it.

      On a whole, yes; there’s a new generation knocking at the door. But they won’t fill up the house in one go, and with Räikkönen and Alonso in line for retirement and Perez, Hülkenberg, Grosjean, Vandoorne and Ericsson not improving, there might be lots of holes to fill.
      Daniel will race unless he decides not to.

  6. His only options are Stay, McLaren or Renault. Renault might be good in a few years but McLaren is a graveyard unless he likes being near the back and driving a rebadged Dallara at Indy to keep him happy. Red Bull is best chance for a title although Max is faster than him and will only get better and better, still a chance though like Rosberg in 2016.

  7. He probably has the choice of Ferrari, Renault, McLaren and staying at Red Bull.

    He is perfect for Ferrari, Leclerc won’t be going to Ferrari in 2019.

    Renault will continue to improve, it must be tempting for him.

    He won’t go to McLaren but I’m sure it’s an option.

    If he’s smart he will choose Ferrari. When Vettel moves on he will be number 1 there. Vettel won’t be too bothered about having Ricciardo there.

  8. Kimi will retire. Daniel will go to Ferrari with huge fanfare. Sebastian Vettel will whinge about Daniel’s appointment as he will be concerned about being beaten like Daniel did when they were at Red Bull together. Irrespective of that, Ferrari will see that Daniel’s Italian surname and the fact they they will have two genuine title contenders is good for the team. Italian fans will love it. There will be a similar occurrence to the ‘Multi 21’ situation during 2019, but Daniel will go on to be World Champion in 2019 regardless…

    …then I woke up and here endeth the dream

  9. Ricciardo is my favorite current driver but can we PLEASE move on from this non-story? Where else is he going to go? The realistic choices are Mercedes, Ferarri and Red Bull. Let’s look at this.

    Mercedes is, for good reason, Lewis-centric. Hamilton can claim all day long that he relishes the challenge of a top driver in that other seat but we see what happened with Rosberg and the friction that was there. Bottas is very good, he’ll never be one of the greats, and he’s doing a fine job at (I imagine) a lower salary than Ricciardo would require. So why would Mercedes switch?

    Ferrari is, for good reason, Seb-centric. Seb has always been very clear that he wants to be top driver and does NOT want a competitive driver in the second seat. See Mark Webber. Kimi is doing well enough, doesn’t make waves and seems perfectly content wearing red clothing and being second behind Seb. He’s making a handsome wage for doing so. He’s got roughly 40 million rea$ons to $tick around as long as Ferrari will have him. So that was never a real, viable option either.

    The rumors of a possible switch for Ricciardo to McClaren were laughable. Ricciardo isn’t going to step backward and he’s smart enough to stay as far away from that apparent snakepit as he can.

    The ONLY place for him is Red Bull. All of the rumors of Mercedes, Ferrari, McClaren and whatever else were simply negotiating tactics. Nothing else.

  10. Dear Daniel, you should have signed after Monaco, when you were the hottest prospect in the paddock. After that race your results were rather weak.

  11. Do you really think the team managers have concentration spans that short?

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