In one of the biggest stories of the season so far, Daniel Ricciardo was sensationally thrust back onto the grand prix grid last weekend in Hungary.
But to do so, Red Bull decided to drop rookie Nyck de Vries from their AlphaTauri junior team – likely ending the 28-year-old’s F1 career as a result.How did Ricciardo fare on his return? Can we already say that Red Bull made the right choice? Our panel of writers give their views.
Right call, wrong approach
Although Hungary quickly showed AlphaTauri now have the better driver, the mid-season change still doesn’t sit right with me. De Vries was not given enough of a chance to prove his worth.
I can’t help but think of Yuki Tsunoda’s rookie season. At the time he could barely go a weekend without crashing at some point, yet Red Bull never seemed to entertain the possibility of sacking him.
Instead, Helmut Marko publicly revealed the doubts Christian Horner held over de Vries at the time of signing him. It gave off the impression Red Bull were just looking for any excuse to fire the 2021 Formula E world champion.
Then when they decided to do so, de Vries – now pretty much unemployed – was just cut off with little support given to him. It certainly could have been handled a lot better.
But as Red Bull have proved several times over the years, Formula 1 is a tough industry. From a business point of view, it makes sense.
Ricciardo has previous experience at the team, is loving life back in the Red Bull family, and at a recent tyre test in an RB19 he produced lap times reportedly good enough for a spot near the front of the Silverstone grid. The eight-times grand prix winner is better placed to lead AlphaTauri than de Vries.
Hungary proved they now have a driver who will fight for points, who will beat Tsunoda, and does not need time to adapt like a rookie usually does.
However, I do wonder what Ricciardo’s intentions are beyond this year. To me, speculation of a return to Red Bull is a little premature.
Ed Hardy
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Tsunoda now in the spotlight
But that national bias did not prevent Ricciardo from earning a RaceFans driver ranking of 19th out of 20 drivers last year, reflecting how one of the grid’s most popular and successful drivers had completely failed to find a solution to his continued lack of performance at McLaren over his ill-fated seasons at the team. While it was surprising to see de Vries jettisoned so soon – and before he had the joy of racing in his home grand prix at Zandvoort – Ricciardo did an excellent job of making Red Bull’s management look smart to make the switch over the Hungary weekend.
But the real story at AlphaTauri over the three days at the Hungaroring wasn’t Ricciardo – it was his team mate. Tsunoda is in a critical third year with his team, one that has proven make-or-break for many Red Bull prospects before him. And with a multiple race winner coming into the garage next to him, Tsunoda has a unique opportunity to elevate his standing within the paddock by matching or even beating Ricciardo over the second half of the year.
After the race, Tsunoda said there had been “zero positives” from the weekend. Ironic, given that his new team mate is notoriously the most positive character in the paddock. But Tsunoda can’t afford to let Ricciardo show him up over the final 11 rounds of the championship – or he might find himself heading the same way as De Vries.
Will Wood
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Ricciardo was always the better choice
Ricciardo’s experience in a Formula 1 car was always going to outshine a rookie that had spent the last few years driving an electric car. He is a multiple grand prix winner, has three pole positions to his name and has driven for some of the best teams on the grid.
What is confusing is why Red Bull signed De Vries in the first place. What attributes did he have that disappeared so quickly that Helmet Marko and Christian Horner thought he was only worthy of 10 races before he got the boot?
Was he only ever a holding driver whilst Ricciardo got his ducks in a row and took the break he needed to feel refreshed and happy? Did Red Bull give de Vries the chance he deserved in the junior team designed to prepare you to step up to Red Bull and fight for championships? Essentially, no.
They saw a better deal in Ricciardo and de Vries was out. The team never needed vindication because there was no competition to be had between the two, Ricciardo was the clear winner and de Vries never had the chance.
Claire Cottingham
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Perez beware
Ricciardo played his first weekend back to perfection. Fresh from testing the RB19 a week earlier, swapping the best car in F1 today for what is apparently the worst did not faze him one iota.
On Saturday he found a few percent more – just enough to pip Tsunoda into Q2 by 0.013 seconds. He took 13th on the grid, the team’s best result in qualifying for five races.
Heading into turn one at the start he was on course to retain that position when Zhou Guanyu ruined his afternoon by running into the back of him. Nonetheless Ricciardo got his head down and recovered to finish where he started.
Ricciardo lost time in traffic after his delay and quickly discarded his second set of tyres after switching to hards. But his final, 40-lap stint on mediums was superb. He was consistently rapid and still chipping away at his personal best lap time on tyres which had covered more than half the race distance.
After the race he reckoned the first-lap collision cost him a chance to score points. He was running alongside Stroll as they approached turn one and the Aston Martin driver finished 10th. They were separated by 20 seconds at the end and Ricciardo potentially had the pace to hold Stroll back after under-cutting him. It could have been an interesting scrap.
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It’s tough for de Vries, who never looked secure in that seat. He wasn’t Red Bull’s first choice for it, they wanted Colton Herta, but as the FIA awards fewer superlicence points to drivers in IndyCar than Formula 3, that didn’t happen.
Red Bull should consider how they’ve managed to get themselves in a position where they have five drivers in Formula 2 and one in Super Formula yet none apparently ready for promotion even to their junior F1 team. As I wouldn’t be surprised if another vacancy appears there before long.
While Ricciardo was playing himself back in, Sergio Perez’s Red Bull was in the barrier four minutes after first practice started. He qualified the best part of half a second off Verstappen and finished 37 seconds behind him. Ricciardo wants his Red Bull seat back, and in Hungary he took the first step towards taking it.
Keith Collantine
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MacLeod (@macleod)
26th July 2023, 8:34
I think the difference of engines was Nick biggest problem. As Mercedes test driver it was not too difficult to jump into a Williams. As we hear the Honda is powerfull but far from smooth.
At Spa we should have seen if he really couldn’t as that was his favourite circuit of Nick so just 2 races to early.
grat
26th July 2023, 8:49
You may be right– had it been a Dutch engine, Tsunoda might have been shown the door.
:)
Jere (@jerejj)
26th July 2023, 8:43
The simple logical explanation for why Tsunoda got more slack in his rookie season was his limited previous single-seater (only five years total before his F1 debut) & non-existent professional racing experience.
However, as Will rightly points out, he doesn’t really have an excuse for getting out-performed by Ricciardo on merit in both their first qualifying & race together despite a considerable car familiarity advantage via having driven the AT04 all season long.
Not only did both get delayed once by something out of their control, which balances things, but Ricciardo also got some collision damage (his words), yet he still finished higher, so Tsunoda needs to be careful not to give Red Bull justification for sacking him in favor of Lawson who’s definitely ready for racing in F1 & has given a strong justification for promotion by his performance level in SF that’s hard to overlook.
Alberto
26th July 2023, 8:44
Sure an experienced race winning driver is a better one than the rookie. The real question is whether it was a good decision for Ricciardo to drive for Alpha Tauri.
Facts&Stats
26th July 2023, 11:07
But all race winning drivers started as a ‘rookie’.
It still needs to be proved that Ricciardo is back to his pre-McLaren pace.
It’s certainly too early to state “The idea he wouldn’t be better than de Vries isn’t really the question here”. Ricciardo might have “finished just outside of the top 10 in 2022 with 37 points”, but that is over a season of 22 races plus 3 sprint events. Mathematically De Vries did better with 2 points from a single race.
Only the future will tell. My assessment/prediction is that De Vries would’ve never gotten to the heights of where Ricciardo was, but it is very well possible that De Vries could achieve more in F1 than the future achievements of Ricciardo.
Alberto
26th July 2023, 11:58
The direct comparison of both drivers performance on single race basis negates the “race winning drivers start as a rookie” argument. That was my point.
I agree with your assessment of De Vries but Alpha Tauris approach to filling this seat as of last race has a different purpose now. But besides that the argument is whether it is a good thing if the seat is filled with an experienced driver from his point of view.
Facts&Stats
26th July 2023, 12:44
I agree with the ‘different purpose(s)’.
One is mentioned by Keith: “Perez beware”
The other is the power of branding. Everybody understands that an unknown new driver (let’s call him ‘X’) is less interesting than staying with a know and well know driver (similar to a brand like ‘Twitter’) ;)
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
26th July 2023, 8:53
I am not sure Red Bull were fully committed to having Nick at AT. But having decided to go down this route I think they expected him to do much better. He’s been a champion twice in previous series but he never really looked like achieving much at AT. He was disappointing and Red Bull are a tough organisation to drive for.
I like Daniel and I hope he does well. Like some I am a bit concerned about the weight of expectation on him at AT and the hype around him. He’s had a break though and he seems to have come back refreshed and ready. I too am not sure that his promotion back to the lead team is going to be quite as swift as he hopes. It depends on his and Checo’s results though.
I cannot see Yuki lasting long term AT. He will be there until the end of this year but I think his place is then really under threat. He’s not shown us anything that amazing really I think. Certainly nothing to justify a promotion should Checo be in trouble.
PacificPR (@streydt)
26th July 2023, 9:58
It’s way to early to draw any conclusions. Let’s see how Spa goes – a completely different track, that probably suits the AlphaTauri less and let’s see what the first races after the summer break will bring. I wouldn’t write off Tsunoda just yet or conclude Ricciardo is back to his former self.
Saffa
26th July 2023, 19:43
Yea let’s see with a race winning experienced driver’s influence with the AF, it’s too early to come to conclusions.
Sad for Nick. I really thought he was going to be on a Albon like level.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th July 2023, 1:03
He should be albon level, based on that race in williams he had, but as far as I read he’s usually taken quite a long time to get up to speed (apart from that case), so it might be that he would’ve needed a place that gives more time before firing you, like williams; red bull isn’t really that suited to someone that can become good on his 2nd year.
Crawliin-from-the-wreckage (@davedai)
26th July 2023, 9:52
I hope Nyck de Vries doesn’t become motorsports version of “The Flying Dutchman”.
Even though Red Bull haven’t got much right lately, I’m at peace with their decision.
osnola
26th July 2023, 11:29
12 wins on a row….I guess you can say they do everything right 👍
Crawliin-from-the-wreckage (@davedai)
26th July 2023, 11:36
Yep I know that.
Pretty much perfecto.
The intention was to wonder why anyone not involved would challenge their decisions..✌️☮️
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
26th July 2023, 9:57
I would still like to know more about how well Nyck fit in at the team.
I have read a few times that he has quite an arrogant personality (yes yes – I know – most drivers are Ego-Manics but still).
Behaving like you are something special when joining an established team is guaranteed to make you a Pariah amongst the people who you need to like you.
I may be miles off the mark but such a short rookie season does speak to me of more than just performance issues.
Jere (@jerejj)
26th July 2023, 10:15
@nullapax Arrogant personality? I haven’t read or heard about such concerning him.
osnola
26th July 2023, 11:30
Agreed, this story keeps popping up.
Some agenda perhaps.
Another reason could be he is Dutch…some people seem to have problems with their direct approach.
S
26th July 2023, 10:26
It depends on what his demands and expectations of the team actually are. If he’s telling them how to go faster and they aren’t listening or are actively rejecting that information, then that’s a team problem – not a driver problem.
Fitting in (ie keeping quiet) may simply result is staying slow – and who does that help? He’s doomed either way, in that case.
As for being something special…. Well, he does have more World Championships than most of the drivers and the F1 grid.
In spec series, no less – where’s it’s almost entirely about the driver’s performance and ability to set up the car.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th July 2023, 1:06
And his monza performance in williams was fine, I’d have expected him to outperform tsunoda, and I’m sure many other people thought that too.
The Edge (@the-edge)
26th July 2023, 10:09
I was surprised to learn that they gave him 4 races to score points or he was to be dropped.
At the start of the season before things settle down that was a possibility, but finishing in the top 10 now is at best a long-shot relying on chance circumstances, for back markers
I wonder if they have set Danny Ric the same target? It doesn’t bode well for him if they have
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th July 2023, 1:08
I’m sure they didn’t give ricciardo that target because it’s an unrealistic one, and this is the problem with haas too the 2nd schumacher year: it became harder to score points as the season progressed, but he wasn’t ready to do that early on when the car was better.
d0senbrot (@d0senbrot)
26th July 2023, 10:14
How can we say that bringing back Ricciardo was the right choice, when after one race it looked like the right choice to hire De Vries?
The past weekend was a positive start, but we should just wait and see how the rest of the season unfolds.
S
26th July 2023, 10:28
This!
It’s been one GP weekend. Coming to any firm conclusions based on that is just plain foolish.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th July 2023, 1:09
Indeed, good point, if you take 1 race in 2021 you can say ricciardo was still a top driver, you just need to take monza and ignore the rest!
frood19 (@frood19)
26th July 2023, 10:23
You’ve got “treaded” instead of “trod” -pedant out
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
26th July 2023, 14:25
That’s from too much writing about tyres.
drmouse (@drmouse)
26th July 2023, 15:12
So you could say it was because he was too… tired?
Matthijs (@matthijs)
26th July 2023, 10:45
It all depends on who’s perspective. From De Vries’ perspective it seems unfair to drop a rookie only after 12 races in a difficult car with seemingly not much guidance to improve.
However, from Red Bull’s perspective it is clear that the chances of De Vries joining Red Bull and being successful there were very slim so there was little point in wasting more time and money on him.
Matthijs (@matthijs)
26th July 2023, 10:45
Only after 10 races, not 12. My bad.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
26th July 2023, 22:11
The problem with terminating Nyck’s contract so early is now every other driver involved with Red Bull Corporation will suspect their contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. If one of those drivers wanted to do something outside of their contract with Red Bull then Red Bull would certainly expect that driver to comply with the contract, but here we have the opposite situation: Red Bull Corporation wanted to do something outside of their contract with Nyck, and they decided to go ahead and do what they wanted to do regardless of that contract.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th July 2023, 1:11
Good point, red bull have plenty of money to terminate contracts when they want, drivers who start f1 with red bull typically don’t.
GechiChan (@gechichan)
26th July 2023, 11:53
Although De Vries had different championship wins under his belt, it felt like didn’t have much going for him in the AT team: limited support from RB bosses, no ties with Honda like Tsunoda has, plus he’s already 28 yo…
He only had his performances to prove his place in the team, and to be fair these were fairly underwhelming and not really improving. Not beating Yuki (which I rate inside the top 5 worst drivers) in qualy or races speaks volumes.
On the other hand, as weird as this seems, Perez underperforming this year has put Nick’s place in F1 at risk. That’s because RedBull realized that they will need to replace Perez in 2024, but promoting either Tsunoda or DeVries was just too soon and not worth the risk. They need a solid no.2, with experience, that can bring the car consistently on the podium. So they needed to quickly bring Daniel in the junior team to get reacquainted with the sport, and who were they to sack: Tsunoda or Devries…?!
floodo1 (@floodo1)
26th July 2023, 14:04
this
Xavi
28th July 2023, 5:13
that’s a stretch
… SMH
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
26th July 2023, 12:07
I mean, it’s simple isn’t it, Perez is messing up massively, they need a replacement and they preferably need someone that likes the car set-up properly like Max does and back in the day Ricciardo and Max pretty much ran the same set-up between them. So you need Ricciardo there and you need him to come in without any race rust.
So yes, it was the right move so Ricciardo can take that Red Bull seat next year without too much issue. Harsh for De Vries, sure, but he also wasn’t make the decision very hard for Red Bull either.
David BR (@david-br)
27th July 2023, 11:50
@sjaakfoo Think so too.
Take Verstappen out of the equation and Red Bull had whom? Pérez, Tsunoda, De Vries. Is any of them a potential championship contender? A resounding no. Not even close. However good Max is, they need some kind of future alternative prospect or a reasonable interim option. And a better (more consistent and faster) second driver at the A team as the other teams edge closer. To be blunt, I think De Vries paid early for Pérez’s run of bad form (5 consecutive failures to progress to Q3 in easily the fastest car on the grid).
Xavi
28th July 2023, 5:25
wow, just wow! you guys are stretching badly.
You paint Ricciardo as a WDC, or even worst as a sure Multi-WDC … this is Ricciardo the guy had got his rear end handed to him by young Lando. What makes you think he would do better than Perez (or Tsunoda or DeVries )?
To follow your question…
Take Verstappen out of the equation and Red Bull had whom? Pérez, Tsunoda, De Vries…. Ricciardo just read that at loud. What makes you think Ricciardo is a “better more consistent and faster” second driver? Didn’t you see him drive at McLaren? short memory indeed.
Perez had 5 bad Qualis, Ricciardo comes from horrible 2 full SEASONS!!! (and if you want to go further back, PER finished ahead of him in a Racing Point! in 2020 )
…. now let’s go ahead and insert the excuses below (including “but McLaren wasn’t the fastest car of the grid”)
GeeMac (@geemac)
26th July 2023, 12:55
One swallow doesn’t make a summer…
I think Danny Ric is a great F1 driver, but one race is not a fair sample set to assess whether Alpha Tauri was right to drop De Vries. We should be having this conversation at the end of the season.
GechiChan (@gechichan)
26th July 2023, 13:08
they were right. He underperformed Yuki, which is hard to do.
But the question is not if they were right or not to drop De Vries, it’s if they were right to hire him in the first place. He was not a RedBull junior, didn’t have much support from top bosses at RB, he’s not that young anymore and not really experienced as a sim driver to be able to nail set-ups. Unless he massively impressed and delivered, this was bound to turn sour sooner or later.
SteveP
26th July 2023, 17:36
However, there are two things to consider:
1. Tsunoda’s race was ruined by the team (slow pit stop and other strategic mess) so relative to Ricciardo in one race is proof of nothing. Too many variables in play. Discuss this again after Ricciardo has done ten races
2. There was an analysis I saw the other week comparing Tsunoda and de Vries over the first 10 races, taking out the blips on Tsunoda, the progression of Tsunoda was a steady downward trend. The progression on de Vries was a steady upward trend.
Maybe the reason for dumping (and it was a dumping with no consideration of the niceties) was that RBR/AT had noted the trend, and giving de Vries two more races might have put him above Tsunoda.
How would they justify dumping the better performer in that circumstance?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th July 2023, 1:16
If your final point is right, that’s disgusting by red bull, I’d start to understand why so many here don’t like the red bull ways if that were true.
Edvaldo
26th July 2023, 13:03
The only thing we know for sure is that Tsunoda is not losing his seat in the same fashion no matter how bad he performs.
In fact ricciardo agreed to return first, then they dropped Nyck. He couldve had more races, but they would be releasing him as soon as they had someone to put in there.
Gary Simmons (@gsimmonsonca)
26th July 2023, 13:39
I think Nyck’s biggest problem was just expectations. He’s a formula E champ, he’s older and experienced, and his one run in the Williams was amazing. RB brought him in not as a rookie to be nurtured, but as a hired gun to deliver results right from day one.
And when you are brought in as a hired gun, you don’t last long if you aren’t delivering.
Electroball76
26th July 2023, 14:36
The next step will be when RB swap Dan and Sergio. RB’s “one family, four seats”‘ approach.
Steven Robertson (@emu55)
26th July 2023, 17:36
Perez is younger than ricciardo, he contributes enough for the team to win the constructors whilst still in the European races. He’s doing exactly what he needs to do. The only reason Perez is being pushed to get better is because max is winning all the races, and the longer it goes on the more likely the FIA are to change the regulations against red bull. Mercedes got away with their domination by at least having their drivers fight each other for the title.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
26th July 2023, 17:49
Is it Perez’ performances that are getting them the constructors title or is it the performance gap combined with no clear #2 team and driver appearing over the course of the season?
Steven Robertson (@emu55)
26th July 2023, 20:37
Perez is a clear second in the championship, over 30 points ahead of Alonso. Thinking about it more it’s probably just classic red bull deflecting, everyone is talking about Perez when they should be talking about how their car is almost in its own formula it’s so good.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th July 2023, 1:22
Have to agree with the other person: verstappen as it is now could win the constructor’s championship even if something happened that wiped all perez’s points and didn’t allow him to continue with red bull, the car is that strong.
Verstappen typically gets 26 points because he’s so fast fastest lap is not hard to get, 2nd and 3rd combined give 33 points, it’s just not possible to compete with verstappen when we have so many teams battling for 2nd: mclaren, aston, ferrari, mercedes, and aston is immediately out because they have stroll.
A team would have to consistently get 3rd and 4th to beat verstappen’s tally; I’m not saying red bull should continue with a single driver, just saying perez doesn’t have to do much to achieve the constructor’s title, if anything at all.
Xavi
28th July 2023, 5:40
Perez has won 2 races this season so far, that’s contributing to the Constructions points and so is every point he scores during the races. RBR has won 12 consecutive races, 2 of those were PER.
True, it seems PER doesn’t have to do much to achieve the constructor’s title, neither does VER. That’s just how powerful RBR car is this season.
Leroy (@g-funk)
26th July 2023, 20:46
Max would be winning the constructors championship all on his own (Max: 281 points, Mercedes (2nd place): 223 points). So Perez isn’t really a significant contributor to Red Bull winning the constructors championship at this point. Maybe it will get closer at the end of the year but at this point, Red Bull is really just a one-driver team.
Leroy (@g-funk)
26th July 2023, 20:47
meant as a reply to @emu55
x303 (@x303)
26th July 2023, 22:04
Claire asked a good question with fair points: should RB have hired Nyck in the first place? They already had Ricciardo, they have plenty of F2 drivers and visibly weren’t bothered to help him. Just compare what they did to help Ricciardo.
Edvaldo
27th July 2023, 0:00
they didn’t had Ricciardo yet when they signed him, Ricciardo was announced as the reserve driver a month later.
But yeah, then they probably though what to do with this guy now? They gave him some races to fullfil the contract and got rid of him as early as reasonable so as to not look like they screwed him.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th July 2023, 1:27
Another thing: ricciardo wasn’t ready back then, he was doing horribly in mclaren and you see they required him to do a good test to sign him, they weren’t happy about how he was doing at the simulator at first.
Also, de vries impressed in his first race, so if red bull don’t care about the driver but only about what’s in their own best interests (which I’m pretty sure is true), then they might’ve thought: if this driver is the next verstappen, we’re getting a 2nd top driver in our team, and if he’s not good we have ricciardo as a backup.
And unfortunately, de vries’ relative performances in alpha tauri were not in line with his monza race, he should’ve beaten tsunoda handily.
bennie
27th July 2023, 8:05
Tsunoda stays due to his Honda connections. With Riccardo they now have an option for the second red bull seat. Which will keep Perez costs down.