'Good Recommendation For His Future': Red Bull Boss Reacts To Ricciardo's P4

Sunday, 29 October 2023 at 15:00

Updated at Saturday, 02 December 2023 at 18:13

Red Bull Racing F1 advisor Helmut Marko reacted to the astonishing performance of AlphaTauri driver Daniel Ricciardo during Qualifying for the 2023 Mexico City Grand Prix.

Saturday's Qualifying session at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez brought results that nobody expected. Certainly not Charles Leclerc, who said it would be a "huge surprise" if he managed to achieve pole position.

Huge surprise it was the Ferrari drivers achieved a front-row lock-out for the race on Sunday. What's more, Daniel Ricciardo on AlphaTauri finished in P4.

The Honey Badger looked strong since the beginning of the Qualifying as he put on purple sectors here and there, but as he said, he aimed for P7 or P6, and "P4 is wild."

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Mexico City Grand Prix Qualifying Results

The Australian was also aided by his teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who gave him tow down the main straight in the first and second part of qualifying.

However, the lap time of 1:17.382 was purely Ricciardo's doing. The 34-year-old managed to beat Sergio Perez on Red Bull, both Mercedes drivers and also both McLaren drivers.

Red Bull Racing advisor Helmut Marko (whose word matters when deciding driver line-up) praised Ricciardo for "incredible" performance as he told Sky Sports Germany:

"Incredible. Daniel really pulled out all the stops. A great comeback after his hand injury, and a good recommendation for his future."

As one of the main candidates for the future Red Bull seat alongside Max Verstappen, Ricciardo needs this kind of performance. Beating Sergio Perez on supposedly faster really is astonishing.

On the other hand Marko recognized "strong" pace of Sergio Perez who was "only 0.2 seconds" behind his Dutch teammate. What is key for the Mexican driver though, is to finish ahead of Lewis Hamilton on Mercedes who is thrird in the Championship.

"Checo has been strong all weekend, and only 0.2 seconds behind Verstappen is a good performance. He is also ahead of Hamilton, and that is the main goal, to finish ahead of the Mercedes driver."