Red Bull team boss Christian Horner expects that Daniel Ricciardo will be targeting the Singapore Grand Prix as his return point to Formula 1 from the broken hand he is nursing.
Ricciardo hit the barrier at Turn 3 after being distracted by Oscar Piastri crashing at the same corner during the opening stages of Friday’s FP2 session at the Dutch Grand Prix.
The Australian immediately notified his AlphaTauri team he had injured his hand and a subsequent X-ray check diagnosed that he had “sustained a break to a metacarpal on his left hand”, ruling him out of the weekend’s action at Zandvoort.
Horner has revealed to Sky Sports that Ricciardo has now gone to Barcelona for a potential operation, with his comeback date to be determined by his recuperation period.
“Well these guys, you see it in MotoGP, they bounce back pretty quick. He’s headed off today to Barcelona,” Horner said.
“They may even have a little operation on him tomorrow to just tidy up where that break is. It’s quite a clean break then of course it’s all about the recuperation and how long that takes.
“Any normal human being would probably be 10 to 12 weeks but we know these guys aren’t normal. It will all be about the recovery process, how long will that take? Is it going to be three weeks? A month? Is it six weeks? Nobody really knows.”
Red Bull reserve driver Liam Lawson has been handed his F1 bow in place of Ricciardo, with the Kiwi expected to deputise at next weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.
However, Horner suspects that Ricciardo will be pinpointing the Singapore GP (15-17 September) as the closest race weekend in which he can get back behind the wheel.
The eight-time F1 race winner had only marked his return to F1 two races before the summer break, replacing Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri for the remainder of 2023.
“That was the thing he was most frustrated about talking with him last night,” Horner said regarding Ricciardo’s enforced absence.
“He’s just taken a bunch of time off, just got his mojo back, back into it, now he’s on the bench again. That was his frustration.
“They’ve [Alpha Tauri] started to make some progress. A shame for him but I am sure that at the back of his mind he has got Singapore as a target but then again Singapore is probably one of the toughest circuits on the calendar. Nature will take its course.”
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