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Daniel Ricciardo’s chances of returning to Red Bull Racing appear bleak after team boss Helmut Marko suggested he is no longer at the level to represent Formula 1’s most dominant team.
Marko shunned suggestions Ricciardo could replace the under pressure Sergio Perez because his own performances haven’t matched up to teammate Yuki Tsunoda at sister crew RB Formula One Team (formerly AlphaTauri).
“Daniel was put in the car and if he would have been significantly faster than Yuki there was an idea to bring him back to Red Bull Racing,” Marko told ESPN. “But he also had this up and down. So, so far, he didn’t fulfil the criteria to be a Red Bull Racing driver.”
The difficult seat alongside three-time champion Max Verstappen remains coveted by Ricciardo, who is having an unspectacular season with just 12 points on the board, barely half Tsunoda’s total of 22. His highest finish of the year so far came in Austria, where the 35-year-old crossed the line ninth after starting 11th on the grid.
Perez enjoyed a strong start to the season with four podiums in the first five races, but his form has dipped massively in recent weeks with three seventh-placed finishes amounting to his best work in the last eight races. Perez won two races and finished second overall in 2023, an output that has led Marko to supporting his man rather than looking to Ricciardo.
“We believe that we can turn it round and make it more stable for him,” Marko said. “To be teammate to Max is not the nicest thing in Formula 1. Checo has his merits, he’s won races.
“Our discussion was not just about drivers, it was regular discussions we had of what can we do to improve the situation. We have to try to make the car more easy to drive.
“The more difficult the car is to drive, the more the difference to Max comes out because he’s such an outstanding talent. If the rear steps out he won’t lift the throttle, he’s just, ‘yeah, it’s a little bit nervous,’ Checo says ‘it’s difficult’ or ‘it’s undriveable.’
“So to be next to Max is a different story. So we said let’s try to make the car more easy to drive, get more balance, which is also something Max wants, and the best thing is to keep going with Checo and hope that he…the main problem was this up and down.
“He had some very good results, very good performances, then the next day he was half a second off Max or so.”
