Crimson Bull workforce principal Christian Horner says the dearth of consistency that Daniel Ricciardo confirmed this season ended up costing him his race seat in System 1.
Ricciardo has been changed by Liam Lawson for the remainder of the 2024 season at RB, successfully ending his time in F1 after 257 race begins. The Australian was given a race seat partway by 2023 to see if he might be a possible substitute for Sergio Perez in future if wanted, however Horner says an incapacity to ship common high-level performances proved pricey.
“I feel it was the dearth of consistency,” Horner mentioned. “I imply he began the season roughly, then Miami was a weekend of two halves, the Friday and Saturday morning was unbelievable and it appeared just like the Daniel of outdated – defending in opposition to Ferraris and out-driving the automotive – however then Saturday afternoon and the Sunday had been disastrous.
“Even round Barcelona, Helmut (Marko, Crimson Bull Racing director) wished him out of the automotive, and there was already loads of strain on him there. However by the point we received to Montreal it was really pricey outdated Jacques Villeneuve who received him correctly wound up by giving him a tough time. (ED: The 1997 world champion was essential of Ricciardo within the media).
“It undoubtedly fired him up as a result of the way in which he drove the automotive that weekend, he grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and put collectively a really sturdy race weekend. So I did say, ‘give Jacques a name each grand prix for the remainder of the yr!’ as a result of no matter he mentioned it undoubtedly labored.”
However after having given Ricciardo an opportunity to return to Crimson Bull, Horner mentioned the model of the driving force that rejoined the workforce from McLaren on the finish of 2022 was very totally different to the one he’d recognized beforehand.
“I didn’t acknowledge the Daniel on the finish of his tenure at McLaren,” he mentioned. And I mentioned to him ‘why don’t you come and be part of us, rediscover your ardour for the game, we’ve received a complete bunch of sponsors and companions and Max [Verstappen] hates doing all that stuff, so that you’re going to must shake a number of fingers and switch up to a couple occasions, but when there’s a possibility to stay you again within the automotive we are able to see in the event you’ve nonetheless received it, in the event you rediscover your mojo’.
“He picked up some actually dangerous habits when he got here again from McLaren, within the automotive, and little by little, working by his outdated engineering workforce, he began to seek out his type once more. Then we caught him within the automotive for a check at Silverstone, simply after the grand prix, and he knew that was a giant check for him as a result of Nyck de Vries had been barely underwhelming within the AlphaTauri on the time, and naturally we would have liked a backup resolution for Sergio if he weren’t to ship.
“So Daniel put in an impressive efficiency at Silverstone, after which primarily based off that we determined to place him into the AlphaTauri for the rest of the yr, and sadly, he had an important begin in Hungary, however then shortly after, the race at Zandvoort, he had an innocuous-looking accident however clearly the lashback on the steering wheel broke his hand fairly badly.
“That knocked him out for 4 or 5 races, at which level gave Liam the chance to step in and it’s like ‘OK this child can drive as effectively’. So ultimately we elected to take expertise over youth as a result of the aim of Daniel… he wasn’t a junior driver, he was there as a backstop within the occasion Sergio wasn’t discovering his type.”
