Sergio Perez knows what he has to do to retain the Red Bull drive. Photo / Don Kennedy
As the F1 summer break continues, the media has kept itself busy conjuring up possibilities for not so much the second half of the season, but 2024 and beyond.
Chief among the media interest is the situation of Daniel Ricciardo, who replaced Nyck de Vries at Alpha Tauri, and raced in Hungary and Spa, and also Sergio Perez’s position as a teammate to Max Verstappen at Red Bull.
Ricciardo has openly stated that he hopes his performance with the team he began his first full season in F1 with in 2012, when it was called Toro Rosso, might lead him back to the Red Bull seat he gave up at the end of 2018, to join Renault.
Ricciardo’s first race in a F1 car was at Silverstone in 2011 on loan from Red Bull, driving for Hispania Racing [HRT], formerly the Campos team. It was the worst car on the grid and scored no points in 58 grand prix starts.
But Ricciardo did enough to convince Red Bull he belonged in the Toro Rosso team, for whom he drove in 2012 and 2013, recording a best result of 7seventh in China and Monza.
Again, he did enough to convince Red Bull boss Christian Horner that he could be a good teammate for Sebastian Vettel, who had taken the team and himself to four consecutive Constructors’ and drivers’ championships.
Surprisingly, in his first season with Red Bull in 2014, Ricciardo outscored Vettel, by taking three grand prix victories, with none to Vettel, and finished third in the drivers’ championship behind the Mercedes drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
Vettel was fifth in the standings, some 71 points behind Ricciardo. Although the pair got on well, both on and off the track, Vettel decided to join Ferrari in 2015. Whether he was driven out of the Red Bull team by the performance of Ricciardo, we may never know, but being beaten by your teammate is hardly ever palatable.
Ricciardo drove for Red Bull for another three years, but despite winning seven races for the team, including two in 2018, he decided halfway through that season that he would join Renault in 2019.
It is no coincidence that Ricciardo was outdriven by his teammate in that 2018 season by Verstappen, but there wasn’t a lot in it.
The latter also won two races and finished fourth in the championship, whereas Ricciardo was sixth. Although he was 79 points behind Verstappen, when you look at the statistics, he had eight DNFs (did not finish) compared to just two DNFs for Verstappen. Nonetheless, it seems Ricciardo convinced himself that he couldn’t live in Max’s shadow, and wanted to be the team leader at Renault.
His two seasons with that team resulted in two third-place finishes, but the restless Aussie changed teams yet again, joining McLaren as a teammate to Lando Norris in 2020. In the latter, he found a foe rather than an ally, because Norris must have reminded Ricciardo how it felt for Vettel when as his teammate, he had got the better of him.
There was some glory for Ricciardo in that 2021 season, as he won the Italian GP for McLaren, with Norris second. However, last year it all started to go downhill for Ricciardo.
The beaming smile that had almost become a trademark for the charismatic and affable Aussie, who celebrated race victories by doing a ‘shoey’, which meant drinking champagne from his racing boot, had begun to disappear.
Halfway through the season, McLaren boss Zak Brown was hinting that Ricciardo might be replaced. When Fernando Alonso announced he was leaving Alpine to join Aston Martin, taking the seat left vacant by a retiring Vettel, it was assumed Oscar Piastri, another Australian, would take Alonso’s drive. But Piastri’s manager, Mark Webber, had negotiated a deal with McLaren for Piastri to go there in place of Ricciardo. So, an Aussie replaced an Aussie, orchestrated by another Aussie.
“Crickey” was probably the cry heard back in Australia. Ricciardo was out of a drive for 2023, but Horner had not forgotten what he had achieved with his team in five seasons, and offered Daniel an F1 lifeline, namely reserve driver along with Kiwi Liam Lawson.
Ten races into the season, the resurrection of Ricciardo’s F1 career began, when he was recalled to the Alpha Tauri team to replace Nyck de Vries, who Horner admitted he had not wanted to sign up in the first place, but Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko had overruled the team principal.
Ricciardo’s return at the Hungaroring for the Hungarian GP, had the media buzzing. The crowd gathered in the paddock outside the motorhome that is shared by Red Bull and Alpha Tauri, were largely waiting for Ricciardo to emerge, rather than the world champion, Verstappen.
The revival of Ricciardo’s F1 career would be complete and come full circle, with a return to the Red Bull team. Verstappen has already said he would welcome Daniel back, because the two get on well and he said in Hungary he didn’t really understand why he’d left in the first place.
“I spoke already quite a bit with Daniel last week - I could see he was very excited also after driving our car,” Verstappen said in a press conference that also featured Ricciardo and Piastri.
“It’s great to have Daniel back on the grid within the family. I never actually wanted him to leave. We know that we get on really well. If Daniel does well where he is now, then of course you have the opportunity to go back up. So, it’s all open, to be honest.”
Piasrti is the driver who displaced his fellow countryman at McLaren, but he also welcomed him back to the grid.
“I’m very happy for him to come back. I remember watching when it was two Aussies last time around,” Piasrti said in reference to his manager, Mark Webber, who won nine times with Red Bull.
“It’s very, very cool - we’re from a long way away, and it’s pretty rare to have two of us at the same time. So, from a country with such a small population relative to Europe, it’s very cool to have the two of us on the big stage.”
Ricciardo finished 13th in Hungary, a solid enough performance, notably two places ahead of his teammate Yuki Tsunoda. But at Spa, Ricciardo was only 18th, while Tsunoda was 10th.
But it is not Tsunoda’s drive that would be under threat if Ricciardo starts to shine in the second half of the season. That driver would be Perez in that scenario, and the Mexican driver is fully aware of the situation, but is concentrating on his own performance, rather than a potential rival.
“I’ve been in F1 for 13 years, so I don’t think further ahead,” Perez said. “I don’t have time to discuss what’s going on with Daniel. It’s a great opportunity for him. I’m focusing on Hungary and Belgium. I’m not focusing on 2025,” he said back in July.
“It’s in my hands. I’m a winner. I don’t like having bad weekends. It’s not what I’m here for. I would rather be at home doing something else.
“I’m here because I know I can do it and I’ve done it before. People on the sofa forget how much on the little detail we are. We’ve seen it with drivers and teams - they have had difficult periods. But they don’t have 20 replacements after each season.”
Since making those comments, Perez has finished third in Hungary and second at Spa, to remain second in the championship.
Drivers are known to have performance clauses in their contracts, so on the basis of his last two races, Perez might be enjoying his summer break in a more relaxed way. He will also be ignoring talk that his contract is said to contain a clause that allows his team to slash his salary if he falls more than 125 points behind Verstappen, which is the current deficit.
“I don’t know where this is coming from again,” Marko said. “It’s completely made up out of thin air. The contracts are precisely regulated. There will be no salary cuts.”
Horner likewise has given no obvious hint that Ricciardo might replace Perez.
He has said being Verstaapen’s teammate is the “toughest job in Formula 1”. And he denies that having Ricciardo back on the grid was part of a plan to return Ricciardo to the Red Bull team he left in 2018.
“I don’t think so,” Horner said when asked if there was a link to Ricciardo’s return while Perez has been struggling.
“I was keen to bring Daniel back into the fold. We spent the last seven months rebuilding him and getting the old Daniel back that we recognise from when he was last with us. I think with Nyck struggling to get to grips with it, it just took on more relevance to give Alpha Tauri some direction with an experienced driver.”
'It’s looking like it’s going to become an industry that is not sustainable.'