Christian Horner has been vindicated after warning AlphaTauri that signing Nyck de Vries for this season was not the right move.
De Vries has been axed by the team after just 10 races so far this year. For the remaining 12, Daniel Ricciardo has been loaned by Red Bull to their sister team.
By axing the Dutchman, AlphaTauri have washed their hands of the man chosen by Helmut Marko last year to be successor to Pierre Gasly. But he wasn't the unanimous choice among those in the Red Bull hierarchy.
Horner was one of those who was not convinced by De Vries. While Marko was clearly impressed with his Formula 1 debut for Williams at Monza last season, the Austrian recently admitted that the Red Bull team principal had his reservations.
Asked if the pair sometimes have such opposing views, Marko said last month: "Not often, but sometimes we do. The last one... I would say De Vries. Basically, it's AlphaTauri, but we're a big family and we get opinions. [Horner] was not a fan of De Vries. I would say at the moment it looks like he's right."
De Vries failed to score a point in either of the two races since, in Austria and at Silverstone, and has now lost his seat. It is a chance for Ricciardo to prove that, at 34 and after his McLaren woes, he still has what it takes to perform in F1.
But it also means that, again, AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost does not have the man he wanted in that seat. Alongside Yuki Tsunoda, the outgoing veteran chief recently admitted his preferred option was Mick Schumacher.
The German was released by Haas at the end of last season and was snapped up by Mercedes as a reserve soon after. But Tost had wanted to bring him into the Red Bull family – before being overruled.
"It was actually clear to me originally that that our driver pairing will be Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda," he recently explained. "Then suddenly Pierre was headed to Alpine and that gave us a place [to fill]. Until Monza it was completely unclear who would be our driver. And then, logically, I thought of Mick Schumacher."
Tost also claimed Schumacher "is much better than he is currently perceived [to be] by the outside world", but conceded that his plan was "rejected". Ralf Schumacher, Mick's uncle, later accused Marko of blocking his nephew from joining AlphaTauri for "personal reasons".
