Three RB juniors ‘ready to go’ with Daniel Ricciardo help plan revealed

Red Bull’s junior driver programme is stacked with talent “ready to go”, but Daniel Ricciardo is being given every opportunity to impress the RB team.

Ricciardo’s contract with the second Red Bull team hasn’t yet been renewed, with the Australian eager to keep his F1 comeback going by securing a drive for F1 2025.

How RB is giving Daniel Ricciardo every opportunity

Ricciardo has had a relatively subdued season so far compared to RB teammate Yuki Tsunoda, with high points including fourth place in the Miami Grand Prix Sprint as well as points in Canada and Austria, and the Australian’s vast experience and race-winning knowledge meant he came into the team with different expectations of him than the young Japanese driver.

Speaking in an extensive interview with PlanetF1.com , RB CEO Peter Bayer said the evolution of the team from being purely a development ground for Red Bull ‘s juniors into something that must tick that box as well as achieve success in its own right has changed the dynamic of what the team requires.

“We don’t need to develop Daniel. He came into the team to perform and to help us with Yuki,” he told PlanetF1.com.

“Between Daniel and Yuki, Daniel has been part of that Yuki development project. At the same time, we obviously were also expecting from him as a very fast and experienced driver, we were expecting performance from him and we are expecting performance from him.”

Asked outright whether Ricciardo’s seat is in danger, Bayer said: “So without creating pressure or doing an evaluation of if his seat is in danger, I think he knows, we know that he needs to perform. If he’s not performing, it will be difficult to put him into the car next year.”

Ricciardo recently came under serious fire from 1997 F1 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve, who questioned why the Australian still has a seat in the sport as his form has proven sporadic in recent years.

It resulted in a back-and-forth war of words with the French-Canadian, with Ricciardo giving short shrift to the opinion of Villeneuve as he brushed off the criticism.

Asked how resilient Ricciardo is proving through a period of time in which he’s under serious pressure – both to perform to a level that will earn him a new deal, as well as take the criticism of external observers – Bayer said he can see his driver coping with it with aplomb.

“Absolutely he’s dealing with it in the best possible way,” he said.

“About all the other noise from the outside, I honestly don’t think it’s fair.

“It’s a big ask for people from people in the F1 paddock, to be fair. I always keep smiling when we talk about gentlemen’s agreements, you know, show me the gentleman!

“What it does, it’s basically allowing him to focus. I think he’s thinking ‘I’m gonna prove them wrong’. His focus is tremendous.”

Bayer explained that the RB team is doing everything it can to reduce the off-track distractions for their driver – particularly in the area of marketing, with Ricciardo being highly in demand due to his sunny personality making him a sponsor’s dream.

“There’s no more extra media time – we’re really reducing it to the absolute minimum. Sponsorship appearances are minimal,” he said.

“Someone even told me that he has deleted the Instagram app on his phone and let’s his team manage it to make sure that he’s not distracted!

“Probably the only person who is focused as Daniel in the battle right now is Max [Verstappen]. I think those are the two people who are like racing is everything.”

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RB giving Daniel Ricciardo ‘window of free air’ as junior drivers wait patiently

Asked outright whether Ricciardo is in danger of being dropped by the team before the end of this season, as hinted at by Helmut Marko’s comments last week regarding the possibility, Bayer said the situation is unchanged – the team continues to have access to junior drivers who are ready to step in at a moment’s notice, but that call won’t be made until absolutely necessary.

“I don’t know, honestly,” Bayer said.

“What I want to give Daniel is exactly that window of free air to race. We’re not in a hurry. We have Liam [Lawson]. You put him in the car, his seat is ready and everything, you know? He’s gonna start and go.

“We have Isack Hadjar behind him, he did FP1s and his seat is ready in the factory. We have [Ayumu] Iwasa ready to go.

“We’re not in a rush in terms of what we need to do as a team – that’s why we’re saying ‘Guys, hold on, we race’. In the summer break, yes, we’ll sit down and discuss.”

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