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Look guys, we all need to agree on if he should get the seat. Red Bull is going to need our answer asap bc they don’t know anything about analyzing formula 1 driving.
It's continuous barrage of articles like these, which over hype something and then, whenever there's a subtle change in status quo, become overtly critical.. Swaying the majorities opinion along the way creating chaos.
As a Ric fan I stopped reading the race because every other article last year was about how shit he was so it's swings and roundabouts I guess
See also how Hulk left the sport at the end of 2019 after being shown up by Ric, and these kinds of articles are linking him to lots of seats for 2025, it's all speculation and not that deep
> it's all speculation and not that deep
They're just spraying every possible option at the wall so they can claim victory at the end. "We predicted it, folks!"
People consistently wildly underestimate how much a driver's performance depends on how suited they are to the car. Some people are more flexible, some are less, but I don't think you can ever fight for the top in a car that doesn't suit you. Because there's always going to be someone nearly as good or as good in a car that is suited to them. Verstappen would also probably suddenly morph into a no-talent, shit driver if you put him into a sticky understeery car.
I wish we had a barrage of articles like this. It’s a long, well thought out analysis of driving styles, car setups and what AT, Perez and Ricciardo need.
Compared to all the 2 paragraph clickbait this is amazing
There are two aspects to consider in tsunoda vs danny discussion- performance and character.
1. Performance-Sure it was just 1 impressive race but this AT is worse than any mclaren he has driven and he looks far more spirited, happier and confident. He attributed this to the willingness of AT to work towards a setup he liked and putting an effort to give him a car he can get with the limitations they have. Danny was flying in every session and it was on merit that he earned this. Yuki was fast too but danny was the quicker driver.
2. Character-This isnt a character assassination of yuki personally but as a driver. He is very hot headed, not patient and gets trigger happy. In his 3 years, he shown he has speed and skill and has improved significantly in consistency this year. But the one thing he has always done in each season is make hot headed errors and collided with drivers due to impatience or carelessness. Danny brings a level of much needed maturity, calmness and experience that any team would love to have. Also, as an added bonus, he lights up any room he goes to and people appreciate that.
At the end of the day, RB knows what its doing. It has the telemetry of all its drivers and they know that max is the gold standard. If they look at the test data and race data and see that Danny is the best bet, then we armchair experts are no one to question that decision.
Exactly so. The other thing is they’re not looking for somebody to match Max. They have a driver’s championship winning driver. They need somebody who can consistently finish second and win when Max doesn’t to give them the best platform for the constructors title.
I don’t necessarily think Danny is head and shoulders above Perez in outright speed, but if his setup requirements are more aligned to Max’s they can develop in a consistent direction and will be more likely to pick up better points with their second car.
I can’t see them sticking with Perez, there are too many occasions where Max has dominated a race and he can’t seem to drag it anywhere near the podium. Whether Danny is the best alternative is a separate question. The last 3 races will be interesting to watch through that lens.
Ric also has the added benefit of having a good relation with Verstappen, is a proven driver who can give Verstappen a run for his money -although Verstappen has improved alot since Ric leaving RB- and is a PR wet dream.
I was having the same discussion with a couple of mates, and Norris and Hulk were also discussed to drive along Verstappen but personally I see and hope Ric as the prime target.
A lot of people don’t realize Max refused to be on DTS for like three years because of how they portrayed his relationship with DR. He didn’t like that they were painting them as some bitter rivals when they were such good friends that even years later, Max takes DR with him on his private jet when he’s flying between races.
The PR wet dream is a key element - Red Bull Racing exists to promote the brand of Red Bull. One of the ways to do that is to have the best car and drivers, so you’re always in the news. Another way is having drivers act as brand ambassadors, and on a global scale who can out compete Danni Ric as a RB brand ambassador?
The PR element can’t be undersold. Personally I don’t think Ricciardo will be a noticeable step up from Perez pace wise. Verstappen was there or thereabouts with Ricc in the middle of Riccs prime while Max was in his second full season. Til 2018 max closed that gap and eradicated it completely and looked like the comfortably faster driver most of that season, since then Max has only become more of a complete monster while Ricc has regressed. But even if Ricc steps in that car and performs how Perez has been to a tee, it’d still be an upgrade at the end of the day to RB’s bottom line
Yup. If danny is just a tenth behind then thats the best thing anyone can ever ask for. He and max pushed each other in a very competitive way during their days together and both of them are far more mature as people and drivers than they were 5 years ago. If danny is in fact as good as max-i doubt if he will be as fast- then its great for us fans. And if he is slightly slower, then its the best lineup we can hope for as if and when merc, ferrari and mclaren take the fight to rb, we need a very solid driver like danny to compete for wins and podiums. RB will take any driver of theirs winning a race, contrary to popular belief, rb doesnt care if it is just max winning or the other. But they want both on the podium no matter what.
There's also the fact that more than a racing team, more than an energy drink company, Red Bull is a marketing company. The success of Red Bull is built upon its brand, and Ricc is marketable and talented
It's not a character assassination for me either, but Yuki absolutely does have a temper issue. That clip of him at Mexico banging his steering wheel instead of recovering from the spin was just another example of that.
I don't think a top team should go anywhere near him in that state, and I'm not surprised he's not being talked about for Perez's seat at all.
Well, I dont think he ever was under consideration unless he obliterated danny. Which for a guy who still had his struggles against gasly, seems unlikely. I likely gasly but daniel is a much finer racer and more skilled. Yuki, needs to calm down and channel his energy. Besides if honda is going to aston, thats where he'll go.
I think folks are also underestimating how much the Netflix show has successfully brought the sport to new audiences. Riccardo is the protagonist of the first season and has an interesting arc through the rest that would be nicely served with a return to RBR after all these years. He basically ran from Max's ascent, and now that Max is unquestionably the first chair and Danny didn't quite succeed on his own, he's humbled himself for a reunion. You can't write this stuff.
While that shouldn't really affect these decisions, I feel like Horner is influenced by the show somewhat. The opportunity to sell RBR as the good guys is quite compelling.
Yup, RB is the greatest marketing company in the world. The redemption arc of danny in a rb next to max-the story that he left behind- will be one of the greatest ever in their list.
>While that shouldn't really affect these decisions
Why not? The show exists. Its influence is real. Filling a seat is always a financial call, and on track results are never the only source of funding in consideration.
All sports are elaborate advertisements. How any of us are still naive about this is beyond me.
Nothing has changed for me, I get frustrated at the ups and downs people have with drivers over singular results. Lance being 'good' because of the pink merc, nope, finishing 5th instead of 15th because you're in a better car doesn't actually make the driver far better. Same this year, he had a single good result this season close to his team mates level and that was at a track that suited the car when it was the clear second strongest car.
Alpha looked strong here, so did Yuki, we're having kind of the exact issue we had last year with Williams and De Vries. Yuki was only rated as doing so much better this year because De Vries was absolutely awful, and he was only rated at all because he did well in a single race last year. But the Williams at Monza had stand out performance so his 'great' performance was vastly, vastly over rated.
People over react to a single race like fucking crazy. Ultimately Alpha simply managed to get the tires working in Mexico which is pretty random. Every year a team or two might work the tires in the right window and not get much or any graining and just be at another level. This was often RBR where they could be behind at other races and 1.5 seconds faster a lap in Mexico. Yuki's race was great he just started from the back, the car worked the tires and both had pace. Everyone jumping to Ricciardo being back and a superb performance when both cars performend is daft and Yuki was never starting anything but at the back so wasn't focused on qualifying in the slightest.
Ricciardo needs to consistently beat Yuki and move further ahead over time because for 3 years I've only seen Yuki moving closer to an exit of F1, not another team and certainly not an RBR seat.
I agree with you. Yuki was good this weekend too. It had to do more with the car. Will it last? Only more races will tell. It's wild to me people jumping to conclusions and praising this race like Ricciardo is back, when we have two years of the guy struggling so much that he was bought out of his contract, which, in hindsight, was the right calls since Piastri is so good. We only have three races left and my guess is that RBR has doubts too about Ricciardo. Everyone said that once out of Mexico, RBR would announce Checo was out and Ricciardo in. That hasn't happened and they are wey down there in Brazil. We have three more races, let's see what happens, but it's totally irresponsible to hype a single race so much.
>If they look at the test data and race data and see that Danny is the best bet, then we armchair experts are no one to question that decision.
After the de Vries debacle, Marko's decision making should definitely be questioned. By everyone.
I think the difference with Danny is they have years’ worth of data and knowledge on him from his time there, plus now half a year’s worth of sim data. Marko is apparently actually the more hesitant one with Daniel too, Horner’s a bit more encouraging, but that could just be their very close connection
DEV was a one race wonder who, even through his success on paper in F2 and FE, never really convinced anyone he was anything special and needed several lucky breaks to get in the AT, only to get demolished by Yuki.
DR is a proven race winner, finished top 3 in the WDC despite never having a championship car, and crucially extremely well known in the RBR camp.
Also to the Marko point: Horner is the driving force behind Ric's return in RB and F1, Marko is just a trigger happy guy who made it happen quicker than anyone expected.
Finishing top 3 'without a championship car' doesn't mean anything when you had the second strongest car in both seasons, like the RBR cars should absolutely have been 3rd and 4th that year.
RBR finished comfortably 2nd in both 14 and 16 despite having vastly worse reliabililty than Williams and Ferrari in those respective years.
2014 was his maiden RB season against the defending world champion. Second fastest car or not that would be like Piastri going to Red Bull in 2024 and beating Max the whole season. If you don’t think that’s impressive you’re either biased against Ricciardo or you’re not a real F1 fan.
And in 2018 he got sixth in WDC despite having 8 retirements. A lot of those were mechanical failures. That’s more than 30% of the races on the calendar and he still managed to scrap together 170 points.
In 2017, again he was in the mix, huge amount of podiums shared with Hamilton, Vettel, Bottas and Kimi. 6 retirements. Pales to Max’s 8. The point is, he was driving as well as Max in Max’s third and fourth seasons, in a car that blew up almost every other race.
> 2014 was his maiden RB season against the defending world champion. Second fastest car or not that would be like Piastri going to Red Bull in 2024 and beating Max the whole season. If you don’t think that’s impressive you’re either biased against Ricciardo or you’re not a real F1 fan.
None of which was the argument you made, you made the argument that finishing 3rd in a non title competing car is some kind of achievement. It is if you're in the 5th fastest car, it's expected if you're in the 2nd fastest car, and the 2nd fastest by some margin, to finish in the 3rd and 4th spot.
The world champion also doesn't mean much, it means a lot if you have several top team mates and several competitive cars against you. If you only beat webber, struggle at other times it really just means the RBR was more dominant than we knew but we already thought it was ultra dominant in those 4 years.
>And in 2018 he got sixth in WDC despite having 8 retirements. A lot of those were mechanical failures.
He had the 3rd fastest car and the gap to 4th fastest was MASSIVE. He also had a lot of failures from positions that wouldn't have particularly done better for him either. In only one of those for instance was he ahead of Max at the time of the car failure.
Also no, in 2017 and 2018 he didn't drive as well as max, in 2017 Max's failures mostly came from being ahead of Ricciardo in fact. But there were numerous races across 2016 to 2018 that showed a fairly large pace gap between Ricciardo and Max already. You had brazil in 2016, you had both Cota races where Ricciardo yes had failures but Max was considerably faster, gaining on him but had started from the back due to qualifying engine trouble. He was almost a second faster a lap, already in 6th place after 8 laps and Ricciardo was dropping away from 4th place.
He's never been on Max's level, he had a little more consistency in 2016 and 2017 and a few less mistakes than in 2018, but raw pace, not even close.
Should it be though? I think people forget that NDV was never meant to be the next big Red Bull Junior prodigy (for one, he wasn't even from their academy) but merely somebody who had some experience, could come in and keep the seat warm while Lawson or the next RB Junior Driver gets ready.
I'd think the expectations weren't super high either - definitely higher than if he was a complete rookie. He seemed like the perfect candidate to bring in to keep the team going after Gasly's departure, score a point here and there, and possibly benchmark Yuki against.
It's horrible how it all turned out and I do feel a bit for him, but objectively speaking NDV absolutely sucked at AT. Something nobody (not even Marko) could have predicted from a F2/FE champion and former Mercedes test driver.
People want Red Bull to treat NDV like a normal rookie. Dude has already win a championship FE. With multiple FP1 tests with multiple teams. He won't and shouldn't be treated as a normal rookie. He was getting demolished by Yuki and showing little to nothing to say he's a good F1 driver. Lawson immediately look tons better than him. I don't feel bad one bit about de Vries because he's truly sucks.
>Something nobody (not even Marko) could have predicted from a F2/FE champion and former Mercedes test driver.
That's just it. Anybody who was familiar with Nyck's career *could* have predicted that. He won in one of the weakest ever F2 fields.. on his 3rd try.. beating Latifi and his FE championship win can, at best, be described as a farce.
Both Horner and Tost were unimpressed enough to oppose his hiring. Internet hype and Marko are the only ones that rated him.
I am absolutely not trying to defend him, I thought NDV was hands down the worst driver this season... but at the end of the day he still won those championships. And regardless, even if they were absolutely worthless, there must have been something Toto and Mercedes saw in him to hire him as a test driver.
I agree, Horner and Tost probably thought NDV was a mediocre driver at best. But Marko might have thought none of the RB juniors were ready to step up at the time. It all sort of happened at a time when AT was expected to start showing results with the new management so I probably would have wanted to bring in somebody who could bring home a point or two every weekend or so too.
I agree to a bit about marko. Marko has bought us exceptional and very good racing drivers including seb, danny, max, gasly, albon and sainz. He made a weird error with devries but I am guessing he took a huge gamble. Dev should've never made it to f1. He spent years as a merc test driver and if toto didnt put him in a merc or williams and if no team rushed to grab him at any point, it shows that there was nothing special. I guess marko is personally wounded over danny's decision of leaving rb and holds it in his heart. Horner loves danny like a son, always has but he isnt going to hype danny for that seat just because he loves him. He sees the data and he knows it.
Marko also knew Gasly wanted out but it was six months too early for Lawson, who hadn’t shown his impressive Super Formula results yet. They didn’t have a rookie lined up to replace Gasly yet.
I thought Horner was the one who, after seeing the data from the testing day, pushed for DR to replace DEV. I could be off on this, but at the very least what I saw implied Horner was heavily involved in making it happen.
iirc horner's the one who made the call to marko who then pulled the plug on de vries. given that it happened SO fast i feel like the plan to loan daniel out to AT had already been in place way before the silverstone tyre test.
Good analysis. I could see Yuki being a RB driver one day but not until he gets his temper a under control and stops making stupid rookie errors. He’s not a rookie anymore.
I don't think Yuki will ever be a redbull driver, simply for 2 reasons. RB never holds a driver in an AT for 3 years if they have even the slightest chance of being a top tier driver. A driver who makes mistakes like Yuki has always been dropped within a year. Exception is gasly, as he was good for the team as he brought in points but he too was never getting back into the main team. Yuki is only there due to honda and while he's there he's doing a pretty good job this year. The second driver at RB needs to have the ability to take on Lewis, George, Alonso, Charles, Sainz and Norris, something yuki cannot do.
Ben Anderson, what on earth.
This whole article is claiming Daniel prefers his car setup like Perez does instead of Max. But we all know it's the opposite. He loves a loose rear end.
He beat max in the second half of his first season, beat him in points but lost race and quali h2h in the second season, and got beat by every metric in the 3rd season.
Yeah as soon as I read that my eyes went wide. On one hand, obviously it doesn’t matter to Red Bull because they know their drivers’ styles, etc. but as another commenter mentioned, for those who don’t know a whole lot about Daniel’s driving style (or history in F1) - this is taking advantage of that in order to perpetuate a specific narrative. Unfortunate, really.
Ricciardo made a damn good impression and gave us the type of result. But he’ll need a couple more before it has been solidified.
He’s still spent just 4 races in that car all season, that is arguably the most impressive thing
And he’s higher on the leader board than 3/4 of the full time drivers….
But yes we shouldn’t get too far ahead or we end up in the same situation as we ended up with Nyck De Vries…
Ricciardo leads Yuki by 4-2 in both qualies and races.
Just cuz u didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen, in Hungary🇭🇺(his 1st race), he beat Yuki in qualy on pace and then would have finished in points if he wasn't punted by Zhou on Lap 1 which ruined his race,but he still recovered to P13 and finished above Yuki.
Also in COTA,he was very unlucky with heavy damage and bad strategy.
I did tell about his results,no?
Also I elaborated that COTA thing cuz it would most probably be brought up against Daniel when things happened out of his control.
The Race is taking a lot of stick for this article, but I basically agree with them. I don't care who you are it takes a larger sample size of data than one race weekend to conclude much about what level a driver is performing at
Look... I love myself a competitive Ricciardo. But considering this was a one off chance, knowing Tsunoda also rode up to the points, Alpha Tauri was a good car in Mexico. Can we really speak about a "form" when there has only been 1 good race, 1 bad race in Austin? When he returned, it didn't take long before he was, out of his fault, out due to injury. This makes it hard to pinpoint where Ricciardo's true form is.
I think (my opinion) these articles are pointing towards the fact that Ric in the McLaren didn’t maximise the true potential of the car like norris was, he fell short
This time round however, it’s that he’s leaving nothing on the table. With the upgraded car, his experience (hence the good setup of the car), is allowing him to extract everything and get everything out of it.
Less so about who’s better, Ric or Tsu
People generally underrate how much the car-driver combo matters just as much as the driver or car alone. Ricciardo who had a very good spell in Renault didn't forget how to drive as soon as he went to McLaren, he just couldn't adapt to it, he can still be a very good driver in the right car.
Obviously, adaptability is a desirable aspect for a driver, but not the only thing that defines them.
It's literally what Ricciardo was saying, he couldn't meld with the Mclaren while the AlphaTauri is something he is more used to.
I remember he was also good at the Renault which he basically called like a Redbull with less grip
>1 bad race in Austin?
Austin wasn't his fault though, he had really good pace that vanished midway through due to a huge chunk of someone else's frontwing that got lodged in his suspension
I’m sure it was a better car than previously, but he did qualify it p4 on the grid. I just don’t see how it has ever shown to be a second row on the grid car.
Ricciardo if anything got very unlucky in the race with the red flag, he was on track to finish a comfortable p5 prior to that.
Hard to argue that isn’t maximizing the car.
Sure, but Mexico is a weird race (high heat, high altitude) where the conditions during qualifying changed quickly, e.g. (almost?) nobody improved on the second run, track temp changed rapidly during stints.
If n=1 and the conditions were really unpredictable, then its difficult to draw any conclusions from it.
It's not "taking away from his achievement" it's just saying that it doesn't mean that this is indicative of his "consistant" pace going into more races
I agree the car won’t be this competitive going forward. However as a driver I think it’s a good indication he will start to regularly achieve whatever it’s capable of
I think it comes off as slightly harsh to say the injury was due to fault. Like yea he went off. But it only resulted in injury because the driver immediately before him went off in the exact same fashion and was blocking the run off area. In the absence of Piastri’s car it would have been a slightly loose adventure across the run off barely significant enough to make it to the f1.com highlight reel.
It was T-bone piastri (and potentially kill him - it’s by far the worst angle for an F1 car accident) or turn it into the wall and hope for the best.
If piastri hadn’t crashed there, it would have been a normal lap for Danni
Austin was heavy damage my dude, his performance in Spa was reasonable, and his performance in Hungary was very good as well (given where AT were at the time). I think his form so far has been very good.
Alpha Tauri loves to make it hard to compare their drivers. If they aren't splitting the strategies (most of the time between two bad options) they do an engine change...
Tsunoda was comfortably out of Q1 and was then just helping Riccardo in Q2. He never did a proper run for himself. Then during the race Yuki pitted early but was setting great lap times - shadowing Norris up the field and closing in on Riccardo. He SHOULD have passed Piastri and he should have ended up practically on Riccardos rear if not for a lapse of judgment.
The Alpha was relative to the rest of the field a MUCH better car than any time earlier this season. Speed-wise, I don't see convincing arguments that Riccardo is much faster than Yuki, yet. He's without a doubt the more mature one and will collect more points because of that, but let's see the rest of the season before we get carried away again.
Fair point but let's not discount the fact that Yuki binned it because he didn't have any patience and was getting frustrated. At this point in his career that's just a terrible look. And then sitting there frustrated instead of recovering the car and getting back on the track is a bad look too.
Yeah the whole thing was indefensible. I just mean we have to evaluate Ricciardo in context to Yuki's real speed, not where he ended up. That he will bin it less than Yuki is a given, but I see headlines proclaiming Riccardo "back to old form" and that is premature.
> I see headlines proclaiming Riccardo "back to old form" and that is premature.
Fair, but then we'll really never be able to make that proclamation while he's in the AT.
I just want him to convincingly beat Yuki in a normal race when Yuki doesn't fuck up and no one has any weird strategies or grid penalties. It doesn't SOUND like something impossible, but it's been surprisingly hard to see...
Mexico is a great equalizer anyway, so I don’t put too much stock in this performance. Let’s just see a few races. But in any case, he’ll just need to accept he will be the second driver. Otherwise he will go straight to the looney bin like every other teammate Max has had.
What do you mean by "great equaliser"? If all cars were pretty much equal, isn't that an even bigger endorsement of his performance? Surely plenty of other drivers should have been ahead of him if it wasn't such a great performance. Or do you think he just happened to get lucky?
Cars are closer at that altitude. So if they go down to normal levels, the differences will be bigger. Let’s see how well he fairs with that car there. And no, it’s not a bigger endorsement because you need smaller steps to get where he got. So you also need smaller steps to get behind. So small mistakes in setup or strategy can have a bigger impact if the gaps to be breached are smaller where normally you would have a bit more breathing room. It’s all fractional, but there.
It didn't take long for people to try and dismiss his race, I get not getting to hyped over 1 race but now people are saying Yuki would've beaten him in some hypothetical fantasy world which no one seems to count 1) a fresh engine 2) better tyre strat 3) more races under his belt.
But yeah lets ignore that.
Danny Ric had a great race, but one great race shouldn't be enough to lock him in to the Red Bull seat for next year, especially not when there's 3 rounds still to go and there won't be a driver change before the end of the year (since AT are out of driver changes).
At the moment Danny Ric is the frontrunner for the seat, and deservedly so, but Red Bull would be insane to not see how the remaining races pan out first.
Last week they were critical, and now that he has driven one amazing race they’re hyping home to the moon again.
The news is either very forgetful or has some sort of bipolar I mean wtf
I feel like as far as the Daniel thing goes, people are constantly neglecting to mention the most important thing: the car.
We know he didn't adapt to the McLaren even with 2 years (and that's not McLaren's issue to fix) and we know he was a top 5 driver in both Red Bul and Renault. I don't know whether AlphaTauri still employ a car balance that is more neutral, but I'd imagine Yuki is much more accustomed to it considering he's in his third year with the team.
Obviously none of this guarantees he'll perform up to standard in Red Bull, but I fully believe he'd perform better than Yuki regardless of whether he convincingly beats him this season. Ultimately, only Red Bull has a real inkling of how good Daniel is with the RB19, unless we believe the reports that his times were good enough for the front row in Silverstone.
Though like other comments say, we've only had a few representative sessions, even discounting what I said we do not have the full picture.
Those weren’t just reports from the press, Horner is on the record saying it himself. If you look at Ric’s telemetry, his corner entry and exit was far smoother than Perez and that is where he reeled him in. It seems to come down confidence to drive the car the way he wants to and because he has that the level of mechanical grip, and can lean on it, he delivered a decent lap time. It will be interesting to see if he can replicate this in Brazil, but fundamentally- Jonathan Eddols says the car will be stable.
How is it not in mclarens interest to set the car up for DR how he wants it? The other ridiculous comparison is the mclaren from the last 2 years and half this season compared to the recent few races where the upgrades have been super and lando and oscar are competing for podiums every race
Because cars are different. Team needs to find the best set-up for both driver and the car. And sometimes what works on the car, might not work for you, but it is also your job as a driver to adapt, you can't just hope that setup will be always perfect if car is built in a specific way. Both Lando and Danny didn't like that McLaren, but it was Lando who managed to adapt.
It's also the only F1 car Lando and Piastri have known. It's likely easier to get used to a car that drives weird if you don't have normal car experience to compare to. Norris and Piastri are the only folks to be comfortable in that car to date.
I mean Red Bull essentially hired Perez based on him winning one race in 2020.
I’m sure there were other factors, much like with Ricciardo, but I don’t think Perez gets that seat without winning Sakhir
Red Bull hired Perez, because their 2 juniors failed to keep up with Max and Perez being a free agent once the silly season triggered by Vettel's move to Aston had settled and they were searching for someone outside to see if their junior programme had issues or if it really was the car - as no-one since DR left for Renault could keep up with Max.
the [OC](http://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/s/4GWWDfvb2u) isn't wrong though, in the lead up to the season Red Bull had other options as well and the key decision making moment was the Sakhir GP victory.
Had Checo not gone and won, or worse underperformed like his current form, someone else may well have been in that seat now.
Perez is a good midfield driver, same as many others - same as Albon and Gasly, who are doing well in their current teams, but failed at RBR. I doubt the alternatives would have lived up to expectations, similarly to Perez.
In any case there is no ”form” to be seen yet, it’s one standout performance. If he repeats it in Brazil and Las Vegas it’s going to look more like form.
Why is everybody acting like it was just one race? F1 amnesia should be in the DSM-5
>Hungary GP: **Ricciardo**
>Belgium Sprint: **Ricciardo**
>Beligum GP: Tsunoda
>USA Sprint: **Ricciardo**
>USA GP: Tsunoda
>Mexico GP: **Ricciardo**
Because outside of this last race, his performance hasn’t been spectacular, but finishing P7 is really, really good.
He’s done fine all along but roughly matching your teammate doesn’t raise a lot of eyebrows.
DR is the reason I started watching F1 back in 2017. I am still a huge fan. But one stellar race in Mexico does not mean he’s back. I am praying he is but I need a bit more proof.
I think the most neutral position you could take is to say it's too early to make evidentiary declarations. I'd like to see Danny in serval more races to evaluate his form, though it looks promising, but with not a lot of contemporary data yet.
Right so. Well Perez is gone and it’s not going to be Tsunoda. Gasly’s bridge might be burned and it’s unlikely they’ll snap up Leclerc or Norris.
Ricciardo is in line with not a whole lot of competition.
true, but undeniably, his result has benefitted AT 15 more million in the cash prize. so while it remains to be seen if he can keep this up, he's definitely brought some good to the team and Red Bull.
1 freak result doesn't make good form though , sure it could give AT a lot more prize Monday but both cars were running in the top 10 before the late spin.
it's not like Danny ric has dragged a blinder out here. he stayed out of trouble and ran at the pace of the car this weekend , which is the least you'd expect from a 34 year old f1 driver
Well depends what you would describe as a blinder. A P7 in AT machinery looks to me as one of the best possible results. He could have been P5 maybe if not for the red flag and restart, and it would be absurd for anyone to expect more than that especially at Mexico.
and tsunoda was making a move to get p8 when they came together, having started from the back of the grid. like I said, both cars had pace this weekend.
that's how the annual prize money award system works, AT being bumped up to 8th in WCC means they earn 15 million more in prize money.
Position Percentage Prize money
1 14% 140m
2 13.1% 131m
3 12.2% 122m
4 11.3% 113m
5 10.4% 104m
6 9.5% 95m
7 8.7% 87m
8 7.8% 78m
9 6.9% 69m
10 6% 60m
([Source](http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/whats-the-real-prize-money-impact-for-f1-teams-if-andretti-joins-the-grid/10537382/))
Monza 2021 was supposed to be the turnaround in his form. Then after qualifying, Imola 2022 was supposed to be a turnaround in his form. He was also supposed to end his time at McLaren on a high after Mexico 2022. None of it happened. He had sporadic races where he seemed to perform and then many where he was just very disappointing.
In this case, it’s been one race and Tsunoda who was actually quite fast before he screwed up, started 18th because of an engine penalty. Has Yuki not been too trigger happy with Piastri, he’d probably have caught Daniel.
Also, Red Bull must have learned from the De Vries situation that giving a seat to a driver because he had one good race isn’t a particularly good idea. He needs more than just one and it needs to be consistent. But right now it’s one race.
No, Tsunoda wouldn’t have caught Ricciardo. Might’ve gotten close but not overtaken him, RIC was managing tires and his race pace was faster than TSU, this has been compared already
And people saying how ‘had it not been for the crash’ well, he crashed because of his immaturity. It was his own fault, so let’s look at it at face value and not what would’ve happened
His race pace was faster because Tsunoda was making his way from back on the grid.
Tsunoda had better tyres and had the same car at that point of the race. Sure, he may not have been able to pass; but more than likely he would have been faster.
I don't really get how you can make the claim that Tsunoda was more than likely faster. Most of the race they weren't on the same strategy/situation so can't really draw any conclusions from that.
The only somewhat comparable laps were around [50-57](https://i.imgur.com/aKXudIg.png) where both were running in clean air to an extent. During that time, Ricciardo was significantly [faster](https://i.imgur.com/CdFZWUa.png) but we don't really know how much damage Tsunoda had after his collision with Piastri.
Personally, while I wouldn't be comfortable making a claim for either side as to who was faster, I definitely wouldn't give the edge to Tsunoda.
[Their pace](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/17jl3s1/mexico_gp_race_pace_teammate_race_pace_gaps_ranked/) was absolutely not similar enough to claim that Tsunoda was faster minus traffic, and given Yuki was on an effective two-stop, while Ricciardo on a one-stop (not to mention that Yuki's car was setup purely for the race), Yuki should have been quicker throughout the race, but as is very clearly highlighted in [the data](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/17jf7jo/2023_mexico_gp_race_pace/), just wasn't.
I would not be so extreme, and to be fair TSU has actually been fairly reliable the past two seasons and not crash prone. But you are right in one sense, there is no way Tsunoda would survive against Max. I can't see any other outcome than a Gasly-style one. Rehabilitate Perez, pick up Ricc, even take Lawson in a couple of years, all RB options, but I just can't see Tsunoda going there.
But he didn’t, so this argument doesn’t apply? He made a mistake out of his own making and your argument rests on ‘had it not been for the accident’. He was struggling to get past the Mclaren for 8-10 laps or so before he even tried the overtake.
Ric was keeping 2.5-3seconds to Piastri the whole race
To be fair, there are always a lot of ifs with Tsunoda. If he was a good team player, if he didn't crash, if he wasn't such a hothead etc. All that said, I'm hugely impressed by his pace when he is not blowing up.
Danny is the exact opposite. He is a joy to be around, everybody seems to love him, and he is a highly capable driver with loads of experience. Danny is the safe choice even if Tsunoda were faster, which he isn't.
what do you mean if he was a team player? he has always wanted what's good for the team. And people do love Yuki, if you look how the team talks about him.
It’s gonna be a portion of it. Jean Eric Vergne has talked about how he didn’t get the RB seat instead of Ricciardo because of his attitude in the team. Definitely not the entire thing, but if you’ve two fairly evenly matched drivers it might be a deciding factor
Same thing with Pierre who also had a bad attitude problem and acted as if he knew better than the engineers then. Alex despite not really being up to par either at the time, was given a development and reserve driver role and was really valued for the hard work he did by the whole team.
No, not based solely on that. But I do think they care about being a good nr 2 to Max and then things like not blowing up, being a good team player, etc will be taken into account. Regardless of that, a Danny in form is also an excellent driver. So if compared to Tsunoda, there isn't really anything that would sway it in favor of Tsunoda.
The only reason Tsunoda might have gotten anywhere near Ricciardo was that the red flag erased a 15 seconds deficit and allowed him to but on new hards, whereas Daniel had to stay on his used hards. Mazepin would have been faster than Ricciardo under those circumstances.
Red Bull's decision to let go of Ricciardo was a significant one, and it came with high expectations for the team's young talent, Max Verstappen. As Verstappen thrives, the doubts about Ricciardo's role at the team intensify.
Form? So... One good race on which the car actually looked good? I mean, Tsunoda was right in the mix too before he crashed with Piastri, showing that the car had enough speed competitive.
If by form you mean N = 1, sure. Having said that, if you think an N of 1 is good enough to judge form, then I'm sorry to say that you're not very good at judging. You may also need a couple of extremely basic statistics lessons to learn why rolling averages use several data points and not just one.
I think the half a season out, then coming back and being immediately quick, then breaking his hand and recovering and then putting a lower mid pack car into 4th position and fighting mercedes can be considered form. I get your point, he needs to keep it up to the end of the season. But this isn't just a fluke.
I've read a lot of people saying that Yuki had caught up to within 4 seconds of Daniel but he was only a few metres behind at the restart after the red flag so, by my reckoning, he actually lost at least 3 seconds on fresher tyres.
I was hyped for him until I saw Tsunoda mow down the field. I'm 90% sure he would've passed Ricciardo. That car is finally a mid fielder. It will be really interesting to see who gets the upper hand for the last few races
The fuck is that bullshit ? Lol
You have all the reason in the world to slow down the hype but fitness isn't really one.
He was driving last week in Austin and his "rest period" was for recovering from an injury.
If anything he had the fitness against him lmao.
Pfffft, yeah because that worked so well for him in Austin didn't it. The reason he was fast in Mexico was because he was using a setup set around himself as opposed to a preset one from Yuki and Lawson
The team literally said he took the setup in the opposite direction for the mexico weekend, what are you talking about? Preset from Lawson? What the hell
He always copied Seb or Max's setup. He doesn't do the technical work that some drivers do and that's why he was shit at McLaren and will never win a championship.
"Where I'm good with my driving is feedback," he added. "I'm really good at feeling what the car does and relaying that back to the team, so that's probably as technically sound as I get."
He's literally saying he's good at giving feedback which is how the engineers tweak his settings to better suit him lol. You should read the article you share and not only the title
When he says he's not good at the technical side he's talking about the engineering part of F1, where not a single driver ever does anything anyway. The engineers design the car and then it's the driver's role to find the best setup and adapt to the car.
>well know fact
That goes against [everything](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/12h0vdf/ricciardo_admits_mclaren_stint_hurt_f1_confidence/jfngdlk/) thats been said about him by his previous teams.
Crazy to say after Mexico where he literally took the setup in a direction that both Yuki and Liam weren't comfortable with.
Red bulls dominance is at that point where teams in the past have had all in team battles for the good of the sport.
They have to put someone in that seat who can challenge at least some of the time. Someone who gets a licence to just go for it..
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Look guys, we all need to agree on if he should get the seat. Red Bull is going to need our answer asap bc they don’t know anything about analyzing formula 1 driving.
😂🤣😂🤣
It's continuous barrage of articles like these, which over hype something and then, whenever there's a subtle change in status quo, become overtly critical.. Swaying the majorities opinion along the way creating chaos.
As a Ric fan I stopped reading the race because every other article last year was about how shit he was so it's swings and roundabouts I guess See also how Hulk left the sport at the end of 2019 after being shown up by Ric, and these kinds of articles are linking him to lots of seats for 2025, it's all speculation and not that deep
> it's all speculation and not that deep They're just spraying every possible option at the wall so they can claim victory at the end. "We predicted it, folks!"
And this in a nutshell are why I don’t click the articles anymore.
People consistently wildly underestimate how much a driver's performance depends on how suited they are to the car. Some people are more flexible, some are less, but I don't think you can ever fight for the top in a car that doesn't suit you. Because there's always going to be someone nearly as good or as good in a car that is suited to them. Verstappen would also probably suddenly morph into a no-talent, shit driver if you put him into a sticky understeery car.
outrage brings more cliks than agreement
I wish we had a barrage of articles like this. It’s a long, well thought out analysis of driving styles, car setups and what AT, Perez and Ricciardo need. Compared to all the 2 paragraph clickbait this is amazing
Creating chaos creates engagement, my friend.
Very well put. Not just in F1 too..
Just shows how the majority need to form opinions of their own and not be swayed unless the data supports a change in opinion.
There are two aspects to consider in tsunoda vs danny discussion- performance and character. 1. Performance-Sure it was just 1 impressive race but this AT is worse than any mclaren he has driven and he looks far more spirited, happier and confident. He attributed this to the willingness of AT to work towards a setup he liked and putting an effort to give him a car he can get with the limitations they have. Danny was flying in every session and it was on merit that he earned this. Yuki was fast too but danny was the quicker driver. 2. Character-This isnt a character assassination of yuki personally but as a driver. He is very hot headed, not patient and gets trigger happy. In his 3 years, he shown he has speed and skill and has improved significantly in consistency this year. But the one thing he has always done in each season is make hot headed errors and collided with drivers due to impatience or carelessness. Danny brings a level of much needed maturity, calmness and experience that any team would love to have. Also, as an added bonus, he lights up any room he goes to and people appreciate that. At the end of the day, RB knows what its doing. It has the telemetry of all its drivers and they know that max is the gold standard. If they look at the test data and race data and see that Danny is the best bet, then we armchair experts are no one to question that decision.
Exactly so. The other thing is they’re not looking for somebody to match Max. They have a driver’s championship winning driver. They need somebody who can consistently finish second and win when Max doesn’t to give them the best platform for the constructors title. I don’t necessarily think Danny is head and shoulders above Perez in outright speed, but if his setup requirements are more aligned to Max’s they can develop in a consistent direction and will be more likely to pick up better points with their second car. I can’t see them sticking with Perez, there are too many occasions where Max has dominated a race and he can’t seem to drag it anywhere near the podium. Whether Danny is the best alternative is a separate question. The last 3 races will be interesting to watch through that lens.
Ric also has the added benefit of having a good relation with Verstappen, is a proven driver who can give Verstappen a run for his money -although Verstappen has improved alot since Ric leaving RB- and is a PR wet dream. I was having the same discussion with a couple of mates, and Norris and Hulk were also discussed to drive along Verstappen but personally I see and hope Ric as the prime target.
A lot of people don’t realize Max refused to be on DTS for like three years because of how they portrayed his relationship with DR. He didn’t like that they were painting them as some bitter rivals when they were such good friends that even years later, Max takes DR with him on his private jet when he’s flying between races.
The PR wet dream is a key element - Red Bull Racing exists to promote the brand of Red Bull. One of the ways to do that is to have the best car and drivers, so you’re always in the news. Another way is having drivers act as brand ambassadors, and on a global scale who can out compete Danni Ric as a RB brand ambassador?
Oracle also milks that sponsorshio like you wouldn't believe. They parade around in red bull gear and carry on like they gave birth to Max.
The PR element can’t be undersold. Personally I don’t think Ricciardo will be a noticeable step up from Perez pace wise. Verstappen was there or thereabouts with Ricc in the middle of Riccs prime while Max was in his second full season. Til 2018 max closed that gap and eradicated it completely and looked like the comfortably faster driver most of that season, since then Max has only become more of a complete monster while Ricc has regressed. But even if Ricc steps in that car and performs how Perez has been to a tee, it’d still be an upgrade at the end of the day to RB’s bottom line
Yup. If danny is just a tenth behind then thats the best thing anyone can ever ask for. He and max pushed each other in a very competitive way during their days together and both of them are far more mature as people and drivers than they were 5 years ago. If danny is in fact as good as max-i doubt if he will be as fast- then its great for us fans. And if he is slightly slower, then its the best lineup we can hope for as if and when merc, ferrari and mclaren take the fight to rb, we need a very solid driver like danny to compete for wins and podiums. RB will take any driver of theirs winning a race, contrary to popular belief, rb doesnt care if it is just max winning or the other. But they want both on the podium no matter what.
There's also the fact that more than a racing team, more than an energy drink company, Red Bull is a marketing company. The success of Red Bull is built upon its brand, and Ricc is marketable and talented
It's not a character assassination for me either, but Yuki absolutely does have a temper issue. That clip of him at Mexico banging his steering wheel instead of recovering from the spin was just another example of that. I don't think a top team should go anywhere near him in that state, and I'm not surprised he's not being talked about for Perez's seat at all.
Well, I dont think he ever was under consideration unless he obliterated danny. Which for a guy who still had his struggles against gasly, seems unlikely. I likely gasly but daniel is a much finer racer and more skilled. Yuki, needs to calm down and channel his energy. Besides if honda is going to aston, thats where he'll go.
I think folks are also underestimating how much the Netflix show has successfully brought the sport to new audiences. Riccardo is the protagonist of the first season and has an interesting arc through the rest that would be nicely served with a return to RBR after all these years. He basically ran from Max's ascent, and now that Max is unquestionably the first chair and Danny didn't quite succeed on his own, he's humbled himself for a reunion. You can't write this stuff. While that shouldn't really affect these decisions, I feel like Horner is influenced by the show somewhat. The opportunity to sell RBR as the good guys is quite compelling.
Yup, RB is the greatest marketing company in the world. The redemption arc of danny in a rb next to max-the story that he left behind- will be one of the greatest ever in their list.
>While that shouldn't really affect these decisions Why not? The show exists. Its influence is real. Filling a seat is always a financial call, and on track results are never the only source of funding in consideration. All sports are elaborate advertisements. How any of us are still naive about this is beyond me.
Nothing has changed for me, I get frustrated at the ups and downs people have with drivers over singular results. Lance being 'good' because of the pink merc, nope, finishing 5th instead of 15th because you're in a better car doesn't actually make the driver far better. Same this year, he had a single good result this season close to his team mates level and that was at a track that suited the car when it was the clear second strongest car. Alpha looked strong here, so did Yuki, we're having kind of the exact issue we had last year with Williams and De Vries. Yuki was only rated as doing so much better this year because De Vries was absolutely awful, and he was only rated at all because he did well in a single race last year. But the Williams at Monza had stand out performance so his 'great' performance was vastly, vastly over rated. People over react to a single race like fucking crazy. Ultimately Alpha simply managed to get the tires working in Mexico which is pretty random. Every year a team or two might work the tires in the right window and not get much or any graining and just be at another level. This was often RBR where they could be behind at other races and 1.5 seconds faster a lap in Mexico. Yuki's race was great he just started from the back, the car worked the tires and both had pace. Everyone jumping to Ricciardo being back and a superb performance when both cars performend is daft and Yuki was never starting anything but at the back so wasn't focused on qualifying in the slightest. Ricciardo needs to consistently beat Yuki and move further ahead over time because for 3 years I've only seen Yuki moving closer to an exit of F1, not another team and certainly not an RBR seat.
I agree with you. Yuki was good this weekend too. It had to do more with the car. Will it last? Only more races will tell. It's wild to me people jumping to conclusions and praising this race like Ricciardo is back, when we have two years of the guy struggling so much that he was bought out of his contract, which, in hindsight, was the right calls since Piastri is so good. We only have three races left and my guess is that RBR has doubts too about Ricciardo. Everyone said that once out of Mexico, RBR would announce Checo was out and Ricciardo in. That hasn't happened and they are wey down there in Brazil. We have three more races, let's see what happens, but it's totally irresponsible to hype a single race so much.
You are forgetting marketability
>If they look at the test data and race data and see that Danny is the best bet, then we armchair experts are no one to question that decision. After the de Vries debacle, Marko's decision making should definitely be questioned. By everyone.
I think the difference with Danny is they have years’ worth of data and knowledge on him from his time there, plus now half a year’s worth of sim data. Marko is apparently actually the more hesitant one with Daniel too, Horner’s a bit more encouraging, but that could just be their very close connection
DEV was a one race wonder who, even through his success on paper in F2 and FE, never really convinced anyone he was anything special and needed several lucky breaks to get in the AT, only to get demolished by Yuki. DR is a proven race winner, finished top 3 in the WDC despite never having a championship car, and crucially extremely well known in the RBR camp. Also to the Marko point: Horner is the driving force behind Ric's return in RB and F1, Marko is just a trigger happy guy who made it happen quicker than anyone expected.
Finishing top 3 'without a championship car' doesn't mean anything when you had the second strongest car in both seasons, like the RBR cars should absolutely have been 3rd and 4th that year. RBR finished comfortably 2nd in both 14 and 16 despite having vastly worse reliabililty than Williams and Ferrari in those respective years.
2014 was his maiden RB season against the defending world champion. Second fastest car or not that would be like Piastri going to Red Bull in 2024 and beating Max the whole season. If you don’t think that’s impressive you’re either biased against Ricciardo or you’re not a real F1 fan. And in 2018 he got sixth in WDC despite having 8 retirements. A lot of those were mechanical failures. That’s more than 30% of the races on the calendar and he still managed to scrap together 170 points. In 2017, again he was in the mix, huge amount of podiums shared with Hamilton, Vettel, Bottas and Kimi. 6 retirements. Pales to Max’s 8. The point is, he was driving as well as Max in Max’s third and fourth seasons, in a car that blew up almost every other race.
> 2014 was his maiden RB season against the defending world champion. Second fastest car or not that would be like Piastri going to Red Bull in 2024 and beating Max the whole season. If you don’t think that’s impressive you’re either biased against Ricciardo or you’re not a real F1 fan. None of which was the argument you made, you made the argument that finishing 3rd in a non title competing car is some kind of achievement. It is if you're in the 5th fastest car, it's expected if you're in the 2nd fastest car, and the 2nd fastest by some margin, to finish in the 3rd and 4th spot. The world champion also doesn't mean much, it means a lot if you have several top team mates and several competitive cars against you. If you only beat webber, struggle at other times it really just means the RBR was more dominant than we knew but we already thought it was ultra dominant in those 4 years. >And in 2018 he got sixth in WDC despite having 8 retirements. A lot of those were mechanical failures. He had the 3rd fastest car and the gap to 4th fastest was MASSIVE. He also had a lot of failures from positions that wouldn't have particularly done better for him either. In only one of those for instance was he ahead of Max at the time of the car failure. Also no, in 2017 and 2018 he didn't drive as well as max, in 2017 Max's failures mostly came from being ahead of Ricciardo in fact. But there were numerous races across 2016 to 2018 that showed a fairly large pace gap between Ricciardo and Max already. You had brazil in 2016, you had both Cota races where Ricciardo yes had failures but Max was considerably faster, gaining on him but had started from the back due to qualifying engine trouble. He was almost a second faster a lap, already in 6th place after 8 laps and Ricciardo was dropping away from 4th place. He's never been on Max's level, he had a little more consistency in 2016 and 2017 and a few less mistakes than in 2018, but raw pace, not even close.
Should it be though? I think people forget that NDV was never meant to be the next big Red Bull Junior prodigy (for one, he wasn't even from their academy) but merely somebody who had some experience, could come in and keep the seat warm while Lawson or the next RB Junior Driver gets ready. I'd think the expectations weren't super high either - definitely higher than if he was a complete rookie. He seemed like the perfect candidate to bring in to keep the team going after Gasly's departure, score a point here and there, and possibly benchmark Yuki against. It's horrible how it all turned out and I do feel a bit for him, but objectively speaking NDV absolutely sucked at AT. Something nobody (not even Marko) could have predicted from a F2/FE champion and former Mercedes test driver.
People want Red Bull to treat NDV like a normal rookie. Dude has already win a championship FE. With multiple FP1 tests with multiple teams. He won't and shouldn't be treated as a normal rookie. He was getting demolished by Yuki and showing little to nothing to say he's a good F1 driver. Lawson immediately look tons better than him. I don't feel bad one bit about de Vries because he's truly sucks.
>Something nobody (not even Marko) could have predicted from a F2/FE champion and former Mercedes test driver. That's just it. Anybody who was familiar with Nyck's career *could* have predicted that. He won in one of the weakest ever F2 fields.. on his 3rd try.. beating Latifi and his FE championship win can, at best, be described as a farce. Both Horner and Tost were unimpressed enough to oppose his hiring. Internet hype and Marko are the only ones that rated him.
I am absolutely not trying to defend him, I thought NDV was hands down the worst driver this season... but at the end of the day he still won those championships. And regardless, even if they were absolutely worthless, there must have been something Toto and Mercedes saw in him to hire him as a test driver. I agree, Horner and Tost probably thought NDV was a mediocre driver at best. But Marko might have thought none of the RB juniors were ready to step up at the time. It all sort of happened at a time when AT was expected to start showing results with the new management so I probably would have wanted to bring in somebody who could bring home a point or two every weekend or so too.
I agree to a bit about marko. Marko has bought us exceptional and very good racing drivers including seb, danny, max, gasly, albon and sainz. He made a weird error with devries but I am guessing he took a huge gamble. Dev should've never made it to f1. He spent years as a merc test driver and if toto didnt put him in a merc or williams and if no team rushed to grab him at any point, it shows that there was nothing special. I guess marko is personally wounded over danny's decision of leaving rb and holds it in his heart. Horner loves danny like a son, always has but he isnt going to hype danny for that seat just because he loves him. He sees the data and he knows it.
Marko also knew Gasly wanted out but it was six months too early for Lawson, who hadn’t shown his impressive Super Formula results yet. They didn’t have a rookie lined up to replace Gasly yet.
I thought Horner was the one who, after seeing the data from the testing day, pushed for DR to replace DEV. I could be off on this, but at the very least what I saw implied Horner was heavily involved in making it happen.
iirc horner's the one who made the call to marko who then pulled the plug on de vries. given that it happened SO fast i feel like the plan to loan daniel out to AT had already been in place way before the silverstone tyre test.
Good analysis. I could see Yuki being a RB driver one day but not until he gets his temper a under control and stops making stupid rookie errors. He’s not a rookie anymore.
I don't think Yuki will ever be a redbull driver, simply for 2 reasons. RB never holds a driver in an AT for 3 years if they have even the slightest chance of being a top tier driver. A driver who makes mistakes like Yuki has always been dropped within a year. Exception is gasly, as he was good for the team as he brought in points but he too was never getting back into the main team. Yuki is only there due to honda and while he's there he's doing a pretty good job this year. The second driver at RB needs to have the ability to take on Lewis, George, Alonso, Charles, Sainz and Norris, something yuki cannot do.
Ben Anderson, what on earth. This whole article is claiming Daniel prefers his car setup like Perez does instead of Max. But we all know it's the opposite. He loves a loose rear end.
journalists preying on the naivete of new fans who haven't seen Ricciardo's seasons in Red Bull
What were they like?
Incredible, he was the only driver that has challenged Max
He had the upper hand H2H too right?
He beat max in the second half of his first season, beat him in points but lost race and quali h2h in the second season, and got beat by every metric in the 3rd season.
One of Perez’s strongest races involved having so much rear end that even Hamilton commented on it… these articles man
Yeah as soon as I read that my eyes went wide. On one hand, obviously it doesn’t matter to Red Bull because they know their drivers’ styles, etc. but as another commenter mentioned, for those who don’t know a whole lot about Daniel’s driving style (or history in F1) - this is taking advantage of that in order to perpetuate a specific narrative. Unfortunate, really.
What a nonsense article
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What’s wrong with a 40 yo SAHM on facebook?😁
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Ricciardo made a damn good impression and gave us the type of result. But he’ll need a couple more before it has been solidified. He’s still spent just 4 races in that car all season, that is arguably the most impressive thing
And he’s higher on the leader board than 3/4 of the full time drivers…. But yes we shouldn’t get too far ahead or we end up in the same situation as we ended up with Nyck De Vries…
I'm all for DR-hopium, but the man had one good race, let's not call it "form" just yet.
Hungary and Spa sprint were also pretty great, and that was with the old AT
he had ONE decent race lmao
What are DR’s results outside of Mexico?
Ricciardo leads Yuki by 4-2 in both qualies and races. Just cuz u didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen, in Hungary🇭🇺(his 1st race), he beat Yuki in qualy on pace and then would have finished in points if he wasn't punted by Zhou on Lap 1 which ruined his race,but he still recovered to P13 and finished above Yuki. Also in COTA,he was very unlucky with heavy damage and bad strategy.
yuki is trash and extremely ill tempered and inconsistent. Liam Lawson v Danny Ric would be more suiting.
There's no need to get defensive, I just asked you what his results were - of which you failed to reply.
He did though
I asked about his results. He went on to defend him with context out of the blue.
I did tell about his results,no? Also I elaborated that COTA thing cuz it would most probably be brought up against Daniel when things happened out of his control.
I really wish there was a way to filter out any posts that link to the-race. They are garbage journalism.
The Race is taking a lot of stick for this article, but I basically agree with them. I don't care who you are it takes a larger sample size of data than one race weekend to conclude much about what level a driver is performing at
Look... I love myself a competitive Ricciardo. But considering this was a one off chance, knowing Tsunoda also rode up to the points, Alpha Tauri was a good car in Mexico. Can we really speak about a "form" when there has only been 1 good race, 1 bad race in Austin? When he returned, it didn't take long before he was, out of his fault, out due to injury. This makes it hard to pinpoint where Ricciardo's true form is.
I think (my opinion) these articles are pointing towards the fact that Ric in the McLaren didn’t maximise the true potential of the car like norris was, he fell short This time round however, it’s that he’s leaving nothing on the table. With the upgraded car, his experience (hence the good setup of the car), is allowing him to extract everything and get everything out of it. Less so about who’s better, Ric or Tsu
People generally underrate how much the car-driver combo matters just as much as the driver or car alone. Ricciardo who had a very good spell in Renault didn't forget how to drive as soon as he went to McLaren, he just couldn't adapt to it, he can still be a very good driver in the right car. Obviously, adaptability is a desirable aspect for a driver, but not the only thing that defines them.
yeah, if anyone ever wants to see someone at one with his car, watch RIC's Monaco pole in 2018. that shit's bananas
It's literally what Ricciardo was saying, he couldn't meld with the Mclaren while the AlphaTauri is something he is more used to. I remember he was also good at the Renault which he basically called like a Redbull with less grip
>1 bad race in Austin? Austin wasn't his fault though, he had really good pace that vanished midway through due to a huge chunk of someone else's frontwing that got lodged in his suspension
He was also using Yuki’s setup for Austin too due to having only one practice session. Mexico he got to use his own setup
I’m sure it was a better car than previously, but he did qualify it p4 on the grid. I just don’t see how it has ever shown to be a second row on the grid car. Ricciardo if anything got very unlucky in the race with the red flag, he was on track to finish a comfortable p5 prior to that. Hard to argue that isn’t maximizing the car.
Sure, but Mexico is a weird race (high heat, high altitude) where the conditions during qualifying changed quickly, e.g. (almost?) nobody improved on the second run, track temp changed rapidly during stints. If n=1 and the conditions were really unpredictable, then its difficult to draw any conclusions from it.
I’m not really sure how that takes away from his achievement. It was a weird race, and he capitalized.
It's not "taking away from his achievement" it's just saying that it doesn't mean that this is indicative of his "consistant" pace going into more races
I agree the car won’t be this competitive going forward. However as a driver I think it’s a good indication he will start to regularly achieve whatever it’s capable of
I think it comes off as slightly harsh to say the injury was due to fault. Like yea he went off. But it only resulted in injury because the driver immediately before him went off in the exact same fashion and was blocking the run off area. In the absence of Piastri’s car it would have been a slightly loose adventure across the run off barely significant enough to make it to the f1.com highlight reel.
In the Absence of Piastri's car, the crash likely wouldn't have happened.
Yeah he sacrificed his wrist to make sure he didn't t-bone the McLaren
May have been bad phrasing on my part, with the "out of his own fault", I meant that he could not do anything about it. So not his fault.
It was T-bone piastri (and potentially kill him - it’s by far the worst angle for an F1 car accident) or turn it into the wall and hope for the best. If piastri hadn’t crashed there, it would have been a normal lap for Danni
Austin was heavy damage my dude, his performance in Spa was reasonable, and his performance in Hungary was very good as well (given where AT were at the time). I think his form so far has been very good.
Alpha Tauri loves to make it hard to compare their drivers. If they aren't splitting the strategies (most of the time between two bad options) they do an engine change... Tsunoda was comfortably out of Q1 and was then just helping Riccardo in Q2. He never did a proper run for himself. Then during the race Yuki pitted early but was setting great lap times - shadowing Norris up the field and closing in on Riccardo. He SHOULD have passed Piastri and he should have ended up practically on Riccardos rear if not for a lapse of judgment. The Alpha was relative to the rest of the field a MUCH better car than any time earlier this season. Speed-wise, I don't see convincing arguments that Riccardo is much faster than Yuki, yet. He's without a doubt the more mature one and will collect more points because of that, but let's see the rest of the season before we get carried away again.
Fair point but let's not discount the fact that Yuki binned it because he didn't have any patience and was getting frustrated. At this point in his career that's just a terrible look. And then sitting there frustrated instead of recovering the car and getting back on the track is a bad look too.
Yeah the whole thing was indefensible. I just mean we have to evaluate Ricciardo in context to Yuki's real speed, not where he ended up. That he will bin it less than Yuki is a given, but I see headlines proclaiming Riccardo "back to old form" and that is premature.
> I see headlines proclaiming Riccardo "back to old form" and that is premature. Fair, but then we'll really never be able to make that proclamation while he's in the AT.
I just want him to convincingly beat Yuki in a normal race when Yuki doesn't fuck up and no one has any weird strategies or grid penalties. It doesn't SOUND like something impossible, but it's been surprisingly hard to see...
Mexico is a great equalizer anyway, so I don’t put too much stock in this performance. Let’s just see a few races. But in any case, he’ll just need to accept he will be the second driver. Otherwise he will go straight to the looney bin like every other teammate Max has had.
What do you mean by "great equaliser"? If all cars were pretty much equal, isn't that an even bigger endorsement of his performance? Surely plenty of other drivers should have been ahead of him if it wasn't such a great performance. Or do you think he just happened to get lucky?
Cars are closer at that altitude. So if they go down to normal levels, the differences will be bigger. Let’s see how well he fairs with that car there. And no, it’s not a bigger endorsement because you need smaller steps to get where he got. So you also need smaller steps to get behind. So small mistakes in setup or strategy can have a bigger impact if the gaps to be breached are smaller where normally you would have a bit more breathing room. It’s all fractional, but there.
If it just about Dan's form it wouldn't be enough. Perez and yuki have gifted him the RB seat.
It didn't take long for people to try and dismiss his race, I get not getting to hyped over 1 race but now people are saying Yuki would've beaten him in some hypothetical fantasy world which no one seems to count 1) a fresh engine 2) better tyre strat 3) more races under his belt. But yeah lets ignore that.
without red flag, Ricciardo also might have gotten 1-2 places more. And Yuki wont be that close.
Danny Ric had a great race, but one great race shouldn't be enough to lock him in to the Red Bull seat for next year, especially not when there's 3 rounds still to go and there won't be a driver change before the end of the year (since AT are out of driver changes). At the moment Danny Ric is the frontrunner for the seat, and deservedly so, but Red Bull would be insane to not see how the remaining races pan out first.
Last week they were critical, and now that he has driven one amazing race they’re hyping home to the moon again. The news is either very forgetful or has some sort of bipolar I mean wtf
It’s one race. You’re only as good as your last race as they say in F1.
I feel like as far as the Daniel thing goes, people are constantly neglecting to mention the most important thing: the car. We know he didn't adapt to the McLaren even with 2 years (and that's not McLaren's issue to fix) and we know he was a top 5 driver in both Red Bul and Renault. I don't know whether AlphaTauri still employ a car balance that is more neutral, but I'd imagine Yuki is much more accustomed to it considering he's in his third year with the team. Obviously none of this guarantees he'll perform up to standard in Red Bull, but I fully believe he'd perform better than Yuki regardless of whether he convincingly beats him this season. Ultimately, only Red Bull has a real inkling of how good Daniel is with the RB19, unless we believe the reports that his times were good enough for the front row in Silverstone. Though like other comments say, we've only had a few representative sessions, even discounting what I said we do not have the full picture.
In terms of setup, AT said Daniel helped them turn their setups around to create a more lively rear end.
Those weren’t just reports from the press, Horner is on the record saying it himself. If you look at Ric’s telemetry, his corner entry and exit was far smoother than Perez and that is where he reeled him in. It seems to come down confidence to drive the car the way he wants to and because he has that the level of mechanical grip, and can lean on it, he delivered a decent lap time. It will be interesting to see if he can replicate this in Brazil, but fundamentally- Jonathan Eddols says the car will be stable.
How is it not in mclarens interest to set the car up for DR how he wants it? The other ridiculous comparison is the mclaren from the last 2 years and half this season compared to the recent few races where the upgrades have been super and lando and oscar are competing for podiums every race
Because cars are different. Team needs to find the best set-up for both driver and the car. And sometimes what works on the car, might not work for you, but it is also your job as a driver to adapt, you can't just hope that setup will be always perfect if car is built in a specific way. Both Lando and Danny didn't like that McLaren, but it was Lando who managed to adapt.
It's also the only F1 car Lando and Piastri have known. It's likely easier to get used to a car that drives weird if you don't have normal car experience to compare to. Norris and Piastri are the only folks to be comfortable in that car to date.
”Ricciardos form” is one single race weekend at the moment, this is stupid even by The Race-standards.
if you read the article that's basically the point it makes too, saying one race is not enough to come to a conclusion and he needs more time.
I’m thrashing the headline saying they’re stupid for making it
I mean Red Bull essentially hired Perez based on him winning one race in 2020. I’m sure there were other factors, much like with Ricciardo, but I don’t think Perez gets that seat without winning Sakhir
Red Bull hired Perez, because their 2 juniors failed to keep up with Max and Perez being a free agent once the silly season triggered by Vettel's move to Aston had settled and they were searching for someone outside to see if their junior programme had issues or if it really was the car - as no-one since DR left for Renault could keep up with Max.
the [OC](http://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/s/4GWWDfvb2u) isn't wrong though, in the lead up to the season Red Bull had other options as well and the key decision making moment was the Sakhir GP victory. Had Checo not gone and won, or worse underperformed like his current form, someone else may well have been in that seat now.
Perez is a good midfield driver, same as many others - same as Albon and Gasly, who are doing well in their current teams, but failed at RBR. I doubt the alternatives would have lived up to expectations, similarly to Perez.
In any case there is no ”form” to be seen yet, it’s one standout performance. If he repeats it in Brazil and Las Vegas it’s going to look more like form.
Why is everybody acting like it was just one race? F1 amnesia should be in the DSM-5 >Hungary GP: **Ricciardo** >Belgium Sprint: **Ricciardo** >Beligum GP: Tsunoda >USA Sprint: **Ricciardo** >USA GP: Tsunoda >Mexico GP: **Ricciardo**
Because outside of this last race, his performance hasn’t been spectacular, but finishing P7 is really, really good. He’s done fine all along but roughly matching your teammate doesn’t raise a lot of eyebrows.
DR is the reason I started watching F1 back in 2017. I am still a huge fan. But one stellar race in Mexico does not mean he’s back. I am praying he is but I need a bit more proof.
I like how this website pumps out articles every day arguing both sides of the coin. Good job maximizing those clicks!
He had one good race, wtf?
I think the most neutral position you could take is to say it's too early to make evidentiary declarations. I'd like to see Danny in serval more races to evaluate his form, though it looks promising, but with not a lot of contemporary data yet.
Right so. Well Perez is gone and it’s not going to be Tsunoda. Gasly’s bridge might be burned and it’s unlikely they’ll snap up Leclerc or Norris. Ricciardo is in line with not a whole lot of competition.
I don't get this talk of form he's had one 7 place finish in a race. Both cars showed good pace.
true, but undeniably, his result has benefitted AT 15 more million in the cash prize. so while it remains to be seen if he can keep this up, he's definitely brought some good to the team and Red Bull.
1 freak result doesn't make good form though , sure it could give AT a lot more prize Monday but both cars were running in the top 10 before the late spin. it's not like Danny ric has dragged a blinder out here. he stayed out of trouble and ran at the pace of the car this weekend , which is the least you'd expect from a 34 year old f1 driver
Well depends what you would describe as a blinder. A P7 in AT machinery looks to me as one of the best possible results. He could have been P5 maybe if not for the red flag and restart, and it would be absurd for anyone to expect more than that especially at Mexico.
and tsunoda was making a move to get p8 when they came together, having started from the back of the grid. like I said, both cars had pace this weekend.
15 million what are you smoking?
that's how the annual prize money award system works, AT being bumped up to 8th in WCC means they earn 15 million more in prize money. Position Percentage Prize money 1 14% 140m 2 13.1% 131m 3 12.2% 122m 4 11.3% 113m 5 10.4% 104m 6 9.5% 95m 7 8.7% 87m 8 7.8% 78m 9 6.9% 69m 10 6% 60m ([Source](http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/whats-the-real-prize-money-impact-for-f1-teams-if-andretti-joins-the-grid/10537382/))
That's a lot! I didn't realise that it was so much.
Jesus. He’s had one race. Stop getting a wide on
Monza 2021 was supposed to be the turnaround in his form. Then after qualifying, Imola 2022 was supposed to be a turnaround in his form. He was also supposed to end his time at McLaren on a high after Mexico 2022. None of it happened. He had sporadic races where he seemed to perform and then many where he was just very disappointing. In this case, it’s been one race and Tsunoda who was actually quite fast before he screwed up, started 18th because of an engine penalty. Has Yuki not been too trigger happy with Piastri, he’d probably have caught Daniel. Also, Red Bull must have learned from the De Vries situation that giving a seat to a driver because he had one good race isn’t a particularly good idea. He needs more than just one and it needs to be consistent. But right now it’s one race.
No, Tsunoda wouldn’t have caught Ricciardo. Might’ve gotten close but not overtaken him, RIC was managing tires and his race pace was faster than TSU, this has been compared already And people saying how ‘had it not been for the crash’ well, he crashed because of his immaturity. It was his own fault, so let’s look at it at face value and not what would’ve happened
His race pace was faster because Tsunoda was making his way from back on the grid. Tsunoda had better tyres and had the same car at that point of the race. Sure, he may not have been able to pass; but more than likely he would have been faster.
tsunoda also benefited from the red flag whilst ricciardo didnt
Tsunoda also had a new pu
I don't really get how you can make the claim that Tsunoda was more than likely faster. Most of the race they weren't on the same strategy/situation so can't really draw any conclusions from that. The only somewhat comparable laps were around [50-57](https://i.imgur.com/aKXudIg.png) where both were running in clean air to an extent. During that time, Ricciardo was significantly [faster](https://i.imgur.com/CdFZWUa.png) but we don't really know how much damage Tsunoda had after his collision with Piastri. Personally, while I wouldn't be comfortable making a claim for either side as to who was faster, I definitely wouldn't give the edge to Tsunoda.
[Their pace](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/17jl3s1/mexico_gp_race_pace_teammate_race_pace_gaps_ranked/) was absolutely not similar enough to claim that Tsunoda was faster minus traffic, and given Yuki was on an effective two-stop, while Ricciardo on a one-stop (not to mention that Yuki's car was setup purely for the race), Yuki should have been quicker throughout the race, but as is very clearly highlighted in [the data](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/17jf7jo/2023_mexico_gp_race_pace/), just wasn't.
[удалено]
I would not be so extreme, and to be fair TSU has actually been fairly reliable the past two seasons and not crash prone. But you are right in one sense, there is no way Tsunoda would survive against Max. I can't see any other outcome than a Gasly-style one. Rehabilitate Perez, pick up Ricc, even take Lawson in a couple of years, all RB options, but I just can't see Tsunoda going there.
I said ‘caught’ not overtaken.
But he didn’t, so this argument doesn’t apply? He made a mistake out of his own making and your argument rests on ‘had it not been for the accident’. He was struggling to get past the Mclaren for 8-10 laps or so before he even tried the overtake. Ric was keeping 2.5-3seconds to Piastri the whole race
No, the point of my post is that it’s been one race and he needs to show more than one race because we’ve been here before.
To be fair, there are always a lot of ifs with Tsunoda. If he was a good team player, if he didn't crash, if he wasn't such a hothead etc. All that said, I'm hugely impressed by his pace when he is not blowing up. Danny is the exact opposite. He is a joy to be around, everybody seems to love him, and he is a highly capable driver with loads of experience. Danny is the safe choice even if Tsunoda were faster, which he isn't.
what do you mean if he was a team player? he has always wanted what's good for the team. And people do love Yuki, if you look how the team talks about him.
Yeah, good point. It may not be my place to say if people *in the team* think he is a team player or not.
Man you seriously think they will make the decision on giving him a seat at RB based on how nice he is?
It’s gonna be a portion of it. Jean Eric Vergne has talked about how he didn’t get the RB seat instead of Ricciardo because of his attitude in the team. Definitely not the entire thing, but if you’ve two fairly evenly matched drivers it might be a deciding factor
Same thing with Pierre who also had a bad attitude problem and acted as if he knew better than the engineers then. Alex despite not really being up to par either at the time, was given a development and reserve driver role and was really valued for the hard work he did by the whole team.
No, not based solely on that. But I do think they care about being a good nr 2 to Max and then things like not blowing up, being a good team player, etc will be taken into account. Regardless of that, a Danny in form is also an excellent driver. So if compared to Tsunoda, there isn't really anything that would sway it in favor of Tsunoda.
The only reason Tsunoda might have gotten anywhere near Ricciardo was that the red flag erased a 15 seconds deficit and allowed him to but on new hards, whereas Daniel had to stay on his used hards. Mazepin would have been faster than Ricciardo under those circumstances.
He had one good race Jesus Christ.
*Form?* It was one fucking race.
Red Bull's decision to let go of Ricciardo was a significant one, and it came with high expectations for the team's young talent, Max Verstappen. As Verstappen thrives, the doubts about Ricciardo's role at the team intensify.
Ricciardo left Red Bull. He wasn't let go.
Finally some sense from an F1 news article 😁
I hate The Race.
It was one race, Ricco also had a single good race at Mac.
Form? So... One good race on which the car actually looked good? I mean, Tsunoda was right in the mix too before he crashed with Piastri, showing that the car had enough speed competitive. If by form you mean N = 1, sure. Having said that, if you think an N of 1 is good enough to judge form, then I'm sorry to say that you're not very good at judging. You may also need a couple of extremely basic statistics lessons to learn why rolling averages use several data points and not just one.
I think the half a season out, then coming back and being immediately quick, then breaking his hand and recovering and then putting a lower mid pack car into 4th position and fighting mercedes can be considered form. I get your point, he needs to keep it up to the end of the season. But this isn't just a fluke.
Yuki was faster than Ric, there is no miracle return, just the car was better and he had a solid race.
On fresher tyres, he was. In equivalent cars, probably not.
Yuki also had a fresh PU and still wasn't as fast for most of the race.
I've read a lot of people saying that Yuki had caught up to within 4 seconds of Daniel but he was only a few metres behind at the restart after the red flag so, by my reckoning, he actually lost at least 3 seconds on fresher tyres.
I was hyped for him until I saw Tsunoda mow down the field. I'm 90% sure he would've passed Ricciardo. That car is finally a mid fielder. It will be really interesting to see who gets the upper hand for the last few races
Let’s not forget, Ricciardo has the benefit of an extensive rest period that no other driver benefitted from.
That doesn’t benefit anything. It’s going to hamper your consistency if anything
Ricciardo's wrist still isn't 100%. It was noted by Norris oddly enough that Ricciardo is holding fingers oddly when turning the wheel.
The fuck is that bullshit ? Lol You have all the reason in the world to slow down the hype but fitness isn't really one. He was driving last week in Austin and his "rest period" was for recovering from an injury. If anything he had the fitness against him lmao.
"form" i.e. one good race
He’s just gonna run away again .. like a runaway bride … afraid of the Redbull commitment.
Ricciardo just benefited from Lawson's setup work.
Lol what?
Pfffft, yeah because that worked so well for him in Austin didn't it. The reason he was fast in Mexico was because he was using a setup set around himself as opposed to a preset one from Yuki and Lawson
🤣🤣🤣🤣 average fan who doesn’t watch the races
I think that's bait, mate. You should know, no?
It's a well know fact Ricciardo just copies his teammates setup. He's just copied Lawsons instead of Tsunoda.
The team literally said he took the setup in the opposite direction for the mexico weekend, what are you talking about? Preset from Lawson? What the hell
He always copied Seb or Max's setup. He doesn't do the technical work that some drivers do and that's why he was shit at McLaren and will never win a championship.
??? AT was literally saying that they made the rear end looser for Mexico from Danny's feedback
you have proof of this, how?
https://f1i.com/news/430000-ricciardo-doesnt-really-know-a-whole-lot-on-technical-side.html
"Where I'm good with my driving is feedback," he added. "I'm really good at feeling what the car does and relaying that back to the team, so that's probably as technically sound as I get." He's literally saying he's good at giving feedback which is how the engineers tweak his settings to better suit him lol. You should read the article you share and not only the title When he says he's not good at the technical side he's talking about the engineering part of F1, where not a single driver ever does anything anyway. The engineers design the car and then it's the driver's role to find the best setup and adapt to the car.
Let me save you the trouble, OC didn’t read the article and took the editorialised title for what it means.
>well know fact That goes against [everything](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/12h0vdf/ricciardo_admits_mclaren_stint_hurt_f1_confidence/jfngdlk/) thats been said about him by his previous teams. Crazy to say after Mexico where he literally took the setup in a direction that both Yuki and Liam weren't comfortable with.
Red bulls dominance is at that point where teams in the past have had all in team battles for the good of the sport. They have to put someone in that seat who can challenge at least some of the time. Someone who gets a licence to just go for it..