Red Bull boss Christian Horner has revealed he approached Daniel Ricciardo on the grid in Australia to issue some encouragement amid his recent Formula 1 struggles.
Ricciardo was bidding to hit the ground running this season following his stagnated comeback last term as he aims to realise his ambition of returning to a Red Bull seat.
However, the Australian has endured a challenging start to 2024, having qualified behind team-mate Yuki Tsunoda at each of the three rounds and failing to score a point.
His return home failed to inspire an upturn as a deleted time for track limits saw Ricciardo eliminated in Q1, while Tsunoda converted eighth on the grid into seventh place.
Horner had been one of the biggest advocates for Ricciardo’s return and instigated the test run in the Red Bull RB19 at Silverstone that opened the door for his F1 reprieve.
The long-serving Red Bull team boss has disclosed that he opted to go the back of the grid last weekend to provide the eight-time F1 race winner with a boost to his morale.
“Obviously he’s had a tough weekend,” Horner assessed. “I haven’t really looked at his race. It looked like he had a pretty similar pace to Yuki in the race obviously.
“He had a tough day yesterday getting that lap disallowed so I just want to give him a bit of encouragement.”
Horner has backed Ricciardo to rebound, adding: “He’s a big boy, he’ll pick himself up, but sometimes an F1 driver can be a bit lonely so a bit of encouragement is never a bad thing.”
Ricciardo has come under criticism from several parties since the start of the season, with compatriot and 1980 World Champion Alan Jones claiming he’s past his best.
However, Horner shut down suggestions that Ricciardo is blowing his chance of taking the vacant seat at Red Bull in 2025 alongside reigning champion Max Verstappen.
Asked whether Ricciardo was still under consideration amid a tough opening period, Horner said: “I think it’s still very early in the year to even be thinking about next year.”
Ricciardo has declared that he has ignored the noise from the outside, which has included Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko stating that he must improve to match Tsunoda.
Marko has since expressed that he thinks Ricciardo’s struggles to extract pace from RB’s VCARB 01 car are down to mental obstacles rather than losing his capabilities.
“Each driver sees the other’s data, so there are no secrets,” Marko stated. “They have the same car. Everything is the same.
“Daniel has shown in the past that he is a fast driver, so it is something mental. A mental problem.”
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