With Ricciardo, Formula 1 has its smiley face back, should Pérez be worried?

This article was last updated on July 12, 2023

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With Ricciardo, Formula 1 has its smiley face back, should Pérez be worried?

The smiley face of Formula 1 is back. AlphaTauri has Nyck de Vries – a driver with 10 grands prix and 0 points this season – exchanged for a driver with 232 stars, 8 grand prix victories, 32 podiums and 3 pole positions under his belt: Daniel Ricciardo.

He was actually kind of forgotten. The fact that Red Bull Racing had appointed the 34-year-old Australian as third driver at the beginning of this season seemed to be mainly intended to keep the pressure on Sergio Pérez, Max Verstappen’s Mexican teammate. And for the atmosphere you can also have the cheerful Ricciardo there.

Hilarious videos

Social media is full of hilarious videos starring him. Famous is Ricciardo’s ‘shoey’: filling his sweaty racing shoe with champagne on stage and drinking it in one gulp.

Ricciardo anything but stopped: ‘Alonso is an example’

But the fact that Ricciardo is making his comeback in the premier class of motorsport after just ten races this season (Red Bull is lending him to little brother AlphaTauri) is remarkable. Top adviser Helmut Marko could also have promoted one of his Red Bull juniors, such as Liam Lawson (who competes in the Japanese Superformula) or Honda protégé Ayumu Iwasa (who races in Formula 2).

Which may still happen, if Ricciardo unexpectedly becomes Verstappen’s teammate again at Red Bull Racing later this season. Pérez has now failed the third qualifying session for five consecutive grands prix and is now 99 points behind his Dutch teammate.

Peaks and valleys

Ricciardo’s racing career has been one of ups and downs so far. His route to success, like that of many other Australian drivers, is through Europe. At the age of 19, he won the Formula Renault 2.0 title in 2008 and the British Formula 3 championship a year later with Carlin.

He made his debut in Formula 1 with the tiny Hispania Racing Team in 2011, but the following season he joined the ranks of Red Bull for the first time at Scuderia Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri).

The Australian booked his first grand prix victory two years later with the big Red Bull Racing as a teammate of Sebastian Vettel, in the Grand Prix of Canada in 2014.

When Vettel leaves for Ferrari in 2015, Ricciardo seems to have the empire to himself at Red Bull Racing. He gives team boss Christian Horner seven victories in five seasons, but he has already drawn his next trump card: Max Verstappen.

The young Dutchman outshines Ricciardo in no time, who is looking for a new challenge at Renault, poor in illusion. From that moment on it slowly goes further and further downhill with his Formula 1 career. Although Ricciardo lives up once more in his first season at McLaren, his next employer. He does this with victory in the Grand Prix of Italy, partly thanks to a collision between ruffs Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. It is the last time that Ricciardo is on the podium.

Forced sabbatical

After playing second fiddle to his 11-year-younger British team-mate Lando Norris at McLaren in 2022, Ricciardo has announced he is taking a sabbatical. Forced, because McLaren does not want to continue with him, even though the Australian still has one year left on his contract.

McLaren is going all out for another Aussie: the only 22-year-old Formula 2 champion Oscar Piastri, who narrowly missed out on the podium at Silverstone last weekend.

To recharge the race battery, Ricciardo performed a tire test for Pirelli with the Red Bull RB19 last Tuesday. Horner is very happy that the Australian has a permanent place on the grid again. “It’s good to see Daniel is in good shape despite the fact that he has been away from racing for a while and he was able to show the results of the simulator sessions on the tarmac,” said Horner.

“His tire test lap times were extremely competitive. It was an impressive performance and we can’t wait to see what Daniel will show for the rest of the season while on loan at AlphaTauri.”

Perez’s chair

Ricciardo now has twelve races to show Red Bull that he has not forgotten racing. It can be assumed that Ricciardo does not pick up this glove to bump around in the AT04. When he agreed to this mid-season transfer, the Australian must have had a bigger goal in mind: Pérez’s seat. That’s really laughing.