Ricciardo Would Be 'Shoe In At Red Bull' If He Had Tsunoda's Performance Right Now
F1Thursday, 11 April 2024 at 09:00
Updated at Thursday, 11 April 2024 at 09:05
Former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer pointed out how Daniel Ricciardo would have been perceived differently if he had the same performance as Yuki Tsunoda.
After the first four race weekends of the season, Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda's head-to-head scores are 0-4 in qualifying and 1-3 in race results.
While the honey badger has clearly been struggling, Tsunoda has been driving at his best. In fact, the Japanese driver is the only one to score points for RB this season, and it is purely thanks to him that the team has ranked sixth in the championship.
Both drivers are fighting for their 2025 contracts, and it is not yet clear where each of them will end up. Jolyon Palmer believes the 23-year-old is doing a superb job, as he wrote for F1's official website:
"As much as Daniel is struggling at the start of this season though, you have to say that Yuki is also driving superbly as well and is surely putting himself on the map for a better drive next year, be it at Red Bull or potentially even Aston Martin, who are switching to Honda engines for 2026."
The former F1 driver brought up an interesting point, suggesting that if the performances of the two drivers were swapped, Ricciardo "would be one shoe in at Red Bull."
"If you swapped the performances of Daniel and Yuki around right now, you'd say Ricciardo would be a shoe in at Red Bull for next year, and that's as much of a compliment as Tsunoda can hope for at this early stage."
While this was meant to compliment the Japanese driver, it was suggested that Red Bull's Helmut Marko just won't consider him for the second seat alongside Max Verstappen no matter what.
On the other hand, the 80-year-old has praised Tsunoda to the moon over the last two race weekends, most recently saying his performance was on par with the triple World Champion and Fernando Alonso.
Would this kind of performance be enough to persuade Marko to change his mind before the summer break when he intends to decide about the driver lineup? That remains to be seen.
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