Ricciardo Dismisses Rumors About Potential Ultimatum Or Replacement At RB

Friday, 19 April 2024 at 08:50

Daniel Ricciardo addressed the question marks around his seat in RB during the media day ahead of the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix.

The Honey Badger's performance during the first four rounds of the 2024 season was underwhelming compared to what Red Bull wanted and expected from him.

Helmut Marko explained in an interview with Kleine Zeitung that he wanted Ricciardo to clearly outperform his teammate Yuki Tsunoda to earn the seat at Red Bull.

However, that has not happened. It has been rather the other way around. With such struggles during the season's first races, many experts started remembering Ricciardo's time in McLaren and suggested he just no longer has the speed he once had.

After watching the 34-year-old make a mistake "that you would expect a Formula 4 driver to make," British racing driver Richard Bradley suggested the Australian driver will be replaced before Miami.

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Asked whether there was any thought about being ousted at the back of his mind, the Honey Badger told the media at Shanghai International Circuit:

No, there isn't. Anything can happen, so I'm also not naive, but I haven't had any indication of that."

"Again, it probably goes back to a little bit of maybe what I did in the past, but I think they know even last year I showed the signs of speed and everything that yeah, maybe I didn't always show with McLaren."

After the Australian Grand Prix, rumors suggested that the RB driver was given an ultimatum to improve during the upcoming two to three race weekends or that he would be replaced by the reserve driver Liam Lawson. Asked whether he received an ultimatum, Ricciardo said:

"No, I haven't, I think because I'm obviously around the team every day, so to speak, that I would hear it from them. You know what I mean? I'm of course, like, yeah, I know that we're not where we want to be."

"But I think everything we kind of keep going back to each other is like, we're still in this, we're on the path, like we know what we're doing. I think as well, yes, I haven't had a great start to the season."

Nyck de Vries, who was in a similar situation to the Australian driver at the beginning of the last season, was replaced after ten race weekends. However, Ricciardo believes his situation is different.

"But I'm also not a rookie that's trying to kind of establish myself in the sport and prove something, obviously, I do have a track record, which there is some proof there that I can do it."