More than a third driver? Christian Horner clarifies Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull role for F1 2023
Ricciardo rejoined Red Bull as their third driver for next year after McLaren dropped him in favour of fellow countryman 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Oscar Piastri.
It marks Ricciardo’s return to the team that saw him win seven grands prix and finish third in the driver🐽s’ championship on two occasions.
Initially, Ricc👍iardo’s role was centred around simulator work and participating in various marketing events, but it൩ seems it’s greater than that.
Speaking to SpeedCafe, Horner revealed that Ricciardo will be Red Bull’s rese🏅r♑ve driver on weekends Liam Lawson - their main stand-in - is unable to be present due to his Super Formula commitments.
“Daniel wil൲l be attending some races where, obviously, he will be our reserve drive🐬r for those events,” Horner said.
“[Daniel will] probably do a bit of tyre testing for us, not with the Pirelli programme th🍨at gets distributed around the ♏teams.
“He’ll be doing some work in the simulator. So he’ll be doing all of those activities and then, of course, with the commercial demands that we have from the myriad of sponsors and partners that we have, particul𓆉arly with a much bigger presence in the US where Daniel is now predominantly based, with three Grands Prix there next year🅷, he’s gonna have a busy agenda for the season ahead.”
Horner is also hopeful that Ricciardo re-discoಞvers his “passion” for F1.
“Well, we were surprised to see Daniel be out on the overall market,” he added. “So for us, having grown up with Red Bull, having nurtured him since being a junior, it made sense for us to bring him back in♌to the fold.
“[He’s﷽ a driver] with so much experience, at such a high profile, I think Daniel had fallen out of love a little bit with Formula 1. He’s had a couple of really tough seasons, particularly this year. For him to play🥂 a supporting role to the race drivers as our third driver, both here in the factory and at events with all commercial partners we have as one of the most recognisable faces currently in F1, for us – it made a lot of sense.
“Hopefully, in that process, Daniel will redis🦩cover his passion for Formula 1, but we certainly have no plans to utilise ꦯhim other than in that third driver role, combined with the commercial activities that he’ll be performing.”
With a shar🅰p eye for F1’s controversies and storylines, Connor is the heartbeat of our unbiased reporting.
