Christian Horner reveals Daniel Ricciardo’s first sim session following Red Bull F1 return was “a complete disaster"
Ricciardo rejoined Red Bull as a back-up for168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史: Max Verstappen and 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Sergio Perez after losing his full-time McLaren drive at the👍 end of a torrid 2022 campaign.
The Australian’s Red Bull return ultimately paved the way for his comeback to the F1 grid at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix with AlphaTauri, where he will replace the underperforming 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Nyck de Vries.
Providing fresh insight on Ricciardo’s retuꩲrn to Red Bull, team principal Hornerꦏ made the admission that his first simulator outing did not go to plan.
“It all kicked off in a hotel room in Mexico last yea💛r, I had a meeting with Daniel and it w𝐆as clear that his options for this year were going to be a bit limited and he just looked pretty broken,” Horner told the F1 Nation podcast.
“I said to him why didn’t he come back to Red Bull for 12 months, out of the car predominantly, help us with simulation work, and a bit of tyre testing, and just come back into the fold and refind his pas💜sion for the sport.
“Because it was clear that h🃏e wasn’t enjoying things. To be honest with you, I didn’t really recognise the Daniel over the last couple of years that we’d grown so used to, he’d grown up with us – so that’s where it started.
“He came in and drove the simulator a couple of days after Abu Dhabi, and it was a complete disaster. He’d picked up every bad habit imaginable. He was workingꦜ with his previous engineer and gradually we unpicked it.
“With each session, he just got better and betterꦕ, you could see his confidence growing to the point that he was absolutely on the pace with the race drivers.
“The plan was always to put him in for that Silverstone test.🌜 We kept him very busy on off-track activities, marketing-wise, and the test was extremely impressive.”
A rece✱nt Pirelli tyre test in the RB19 proved key to Ricciardo sealing his shock re𝓰turn to the F1 grid with Red Bull’s sister team.
“I was just pleased to✱ see that he was still able to operate at that level,” Horner said.
“I mentioned to him that that would have put h൩im on the front row of the grid, and you could see the relief in his eyes, and almost the pressure release off of his shoulders, that he could still do it and th𝓡at he wasn’t going mad.
“The old Daniel was still there. 🦄And then ꦦhis long runs were very impressive in the work that he did for Pirelli was absolutely on the money.”
Lewis regularly attends Grands Prix for mahbx.com around the world. Often reporting on t☂he action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.
