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Suddenly, the hand-written message on the helmet of Daniel Ricciardo in Barcelona makes sense after Christian Horner’s shock reveal that Helmut Marko wanted him gone by then.

With speculation swirling that the Singapore Grand Prix would be Ricciardo’s final race with junior team VCARB – a race in which Ricciardo scored the fastest lap and was voted Driver of the Day despite finishing last – confirmation arrived on the following Thursday that Ricciardo was out and Liam Lawson was in for the final six rounds of F1 2024.

Daniel Ricciardo ‘not without a fight’ message to Helmut Marko

And Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has now claimed that he did his best to extend Ricciardo’s time in the VCARB 01, as had it been up to Red Bull senior advisor Helmut Marko, the Spanish Grand Prix would have been Ricciardo’s last race.

“Even around Barcelona, Helmut wanted him out of the car, and there was already a lot of pressure on him there,” said Horner on the F1 Nation podcast.

“I’ve done my very best to buy him as much time in the car to allow him to deliver, otherwise he would have been out of the car after Barcelona.”

And with that claim from Horner, comes apparent context as to why Ricciardo’s helmet for the Spanish GP adorned a ‘not without a fight’ message hand-written on it.

You could say, therefore, that it was a helmet for Helmut.

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Ricciardo was quizzed on that Spanish GP helmet message previously by Sky F1, the eight-time F1 race winner asked whether that ‘sums it up’ as Marko had already begun the Lawson VCARB promotion talk.

“Actually, I wrote it after the race in Monaco,” Ricciardo replied.

“I got back to my room and yeah, Monaco, was a little bit of a down weekend. I felt a little bit better after the race in terms of moving forward, so it was just something I wrote and I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll write it, this is just a memory for me and I’ll put it in the driver room’.

“And then actually when I saw it there last weekend I was like, ‘Oh, I remember this’. Sometimes I like some little personal messages to myself and I think that’s it.

“Look, it’s competitive, that’s the sport we’re in and it’s what I chose, but I feel like if I leave it all on the table, then it’s all you can do and I back myself.”

Ricciardo had scored 12 points to team-mate Yuki Tsunoda’s 22 in F1 2024 at the point of his exit.

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