Ricciardo 'Still Good' But Was Maybe 'Stronger' In Past Says Hulkenberg

Sunday, 31 March 2024 at 00:15

Nico Hulkenberg shared his opinion of the worrying performance of his former Renault teammate, Daniel Ricciardo.

So far, the 2024 season hasn't been a redemption for Australian F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo, who got a second chance in F1 from AlphaTauri (now RB) in the middle of 2023.

The 34-year-old has been out of F1, and he thought it might be over for him, but then he got a chance to test with Red Bull and impressed Christian Horner with Helmut Marko so much that they found him a seat in Red Bull Racing's sister team.

However, many talented rookies are knocking on the door of every team. Consequently, this season is critical for the honey badger to keep his seat in F1.

The problem is that he couldn't outperform his teammate Yuki Tsunoda in the first three weekends of the season, so if RB had to get rid of one driver at this moment, it would probably be the Australian.

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Haas F1 driver Nico Hulkenberg, who raced alongside the 34-year-old during the 2019 season when they met as teammates in Renault, said:

"It doesn't really make sense, and I don't understand it. Because in 2019, he was very competitive and on the pace."

Hulkenberg was outperformed by the honey badger during their season together. He scored 37 points and finished 14th in the Championship, whereas Ricciardo scored 54 points and finished 9th.

"Since then [he's struggled], the McLaren times, which obviously was still the same generation cars [compared to] the new generation cars."

The German driver seemed really puzzled by what is happening with Ricciardo at the moment. He suggested he believes Ricciardo is still good.

"It's tricky, especially from the outside, if you don't have all the info and all the data, it's tricky to judge. But yeah, I don't know why. I think he's still good, but back then, he was stronger, maybe."