Daniel Ricciardo says that he has not received any indication from Red Bull suggesting that his F1 future might be in jeopardy, although he is acutely aware of his employer’s history of abrupt dismissals.
Earlier this year, Ricciardo embarked on his first full season with Visa Cash App RB with the ambition of reigniting his F1 career and putting himself in a position to vie for a seat with Red Bull Racing for 2025.
But things have not panned out as expected for the 34-year-old who endured a tough first four races with RB.
He was comprehensively outpaced in qualifying by his teammate Yuki Tsunoda while a first lap incident in Japan put him out of the race on the spot.
In China however, Ricciardo had the measure of Tsunoda all weekend. On race day, he was running in the points in ninth position when an inattentive Lance Stroll rammed the rear of the Aussie’s car during the Safety Car period, inflicting terminal damage to the machine.
But overall, Shanghai hinted at a turning point for Ricciardo, one that will demand confirmation in Miami. In the interim, the F1 veteran says he isn’t feeling any pressure to deliver or prove his worth.
“I don’t want this to take a whole year and I don’t expect it to because, on the one hand I’m not a rookie, I’ve got experience, so that should also speak for something,” he said, quoted by Speedcafe.
“It’s not like I’m trying to show them something that they haven’t seen, we’re just trying to get me, I guess, in a place where I feel like I can deliver.
“There’s no additional pressure from ‘shit, am I going to have a seat next weekend’ or anything. It’s not anything like that.”
However, Red Bull’s mid-season dismissal last year of Nyck de Vries serves as a reminder that Ricciardo can’t afford to linger in the lower tier of F1’s midfield.
“I’m also not naïve but I haven’t had any indication of that,” he said when asked if he felt that his seat might be in jeopardy.
“Again, it probably goes back to a little bit of maybe what I did in the past, but I think they know – even last year, I showed the signs of speed and everything that maybe I didn’t always show with McLaren.
“So we felt like we got that back out of me and okay, for whatever reason, it hasn’t quite been there to its fullest so far this year.
“But I think they know it’s there and also what we’re doing on the sim, they can see that it’s there, so we just now got to put it together.”
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