Horner: Ricciardo showed “front row” pace to get drive

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner claims Daniel Ricciardo has transformed himself from being “pretty broken” to showing “front row” pace in the Silverstone test, which paved the way to the AlphaTauri promotion.

Ricciardo will make his Formula 1 return at Hungary this weekend for the team currently last in the constructors championship having missed the first 10 races of the 2023 season as Red Bull’s third driver.

After stints at HRT, Toro Rosso, Red Bull, Renault and McLaren between 2011 and 2022, the Aussie found himself off the grid after his stint in papaya ended a year earlier than expected following a challenging two years.

But after AlphaTauri and the Red Bull setup grew impatient with Nyck de Vries and dropped the Dutch driver after the British Grand Prix, Ricciardo returns to the junior team following an “impressive” tyre test on the following Tuesday.

The bombshell announcement arrived just hours after Ricciardo jumped in the RB19 and a current-spec Formula 1 car for the first time this year.

Speaking on the F1 NATION podcast, Horner opened up on the “Honey Badger’s” journey back to the pinnacle of the sport.

He revealed Ricciardo’s first sim session back at Red Bull was a “complete disaster” but an “extremely impressive” showing at the tyre test led to the surprise sudden promotion.

“It all kicked off in a hotel room at Mexico last year, I had a meeting with Daniel and it was clear he looked pretty broken,” Horner said.

“So I said to him ‘why don’t you come back to Red Bull and help us out for 12 months?’ to find that passion for the sport because it was clear he was not enjoying things.

“I did not recognise the Daniel over the last few years to the one that grew up with us. He drove the simulator a couple of days after Abu Dhabi and it was a complete disaster.

“He picked up every bad habit imaginable but we eventually unpacked things and his confidence grew with each session.

“Soon he was on the same pace as our race drivers, so the plan was always to put him in the Silverstone test which was extremely impressive.”

Horner also spoke about the tyre test itself where Ricciardo completed “pretty much 100 laps” and showed “front row” pace in the RB19 in a performance he likened to when the Australian overcame stiff competition for the Red Bull seat vacated by the retiring Mark Webber 10 years ago.

“When we were looking at who was going to be the right person to replace Mark Webber, Kimi Raikkonen was one of the favourites at that point and we decided to give both Carlos Sainz and Daniel a few runs,” he continued.

“Carlos came within a couple of tenths of Sebastian (Vettel) and Daniel went quite a bit quicker.

“What impressed me the most at the (2023) test was that within his third and fourth laps, he was down to a time that was within a second of what our drivers were achieving, bearing in mind he has not driven a car for several months.

“Then in his first proper run when the tyres were comparable you could see his confidence was growing and growing.

“His first push lap and seventh lap of the day would have put him on the front row of the grid.

“His long runs were very impressive and work with Pirelli was on the money.

“You could see almost the relief in his eyes that he could still do it and the old Daniel was still there.”

Horner also spoke about de Vries “not hitting the mark” and why Ricciardo is “pitching for a 2025 Red Bull seat” in the chat with Tom Clarkson, Damon Hill and Pedro de la Rosa.

Ricciardo and the #3 will be back on the Formula 1 grid at the Hungaroring this weekend.

Main Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images

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