Christian Horner hopes Alpine can offer Daniel Ricciardo a lifeline as his future in Formula 1 looks increasingly uncertain.
The Aussie is currently without a seat for 2023 after being let go by McLaren. He was due to spend one more year with the Woking-based outfit, but amid his ongoing struggles for form and consistency the team decided to cut their losses and replace him with 2021 F2 champion Oscar Piastri.
Despite being an eight-time race winner and offering a bucket load of experience, teams have not been falling over themselves to sign Ricciardo. Instead, those who still have vacancies are looking elsewhere.
One of them is Alpine – his former employer when they were still branded as Renault. A return looked to be on the cards in the immediate aftermath of his McLaren release but, since then, Pierre Gasly has become the number one target.
Even if they fail to prise the Frenchman away from AlphaTauri, Alpine still look more likely to turn to academy prospect Jack Doohan to partner Esteban Ocon next year. But Horner would like to see them give Ricciardo one last chance to impress.
"I think I probably would [sign the Australian] to be honest with you," he told F1's Beyond the Grid podcast. "They obviously know him from a couple of seasons ago and he was very together during his last season there, scoring podiums, and I think he's the type of guy that, I think you could rebuild him.
"It's obviously not been a great experience for him [at McLaren] for whatever reason but you just have to think back to some of the drives that he did for us, some of the wins he had, the podiums, some of the stunning overtakes he was capable of... that's still in there I'm sure, he just needs a bit of a reset. You don't just forget how to deliver so I hope for him he gets another opportunity and gets himself back on the grid for next year."
That opinion is in stark contrast to the one held by 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve, who cannot understand why a team with Alpine's ambitions would even consider Ricciardo given his recent form. "He's done two awful years at Renault, two even worse years at McLaren, that's four years and how long has he been in F1 total?" the Canadian said.
"Almost half his F1 career has been bad and that's when he's had experience, so there's no reason, especially for a team he has already driven for. It looks like the modern cars don't suit his driving style because he was impressive at Red Bull, he did some amazing overtaking, he was ahead of Max [Verstappen] but Max was new to F1 and by the end of the season Max was starting to get the better of him and that's when he switched."
