Racing Bulls believes Daniel Ricciardo “second-guessing things” due to his vast experience proved to be a hindrance that impacted him during his Formula 1 return.
Having got back onto the grid with Red Bull’s sister side, then known as AlphaTauri, 10 races into 2023, Ricciardo retained his place at the rebranded RB team last term.
But while he had harboured ambitions to retrieve the Red Bull drive that he had vacated for 2019, Ricciardo’s season was ended in Singapore with six races remaining.
The Australian exited having been 10 points behind Yuki Tsunoda, his less-experienced team-mate at the time, with the Japanese racer also leading the head-to-head results.
RB exhausted all avenues – including a chassis change at Ricciardo’s request – in a bid to unlock his best on a regular basis, but it was to no avail as his struggles continued.
Racing Bulls Racing Director Alan Permane thinks Ricciardo’s obsession with his woes caused him to stop driving on his natural instincts and led to his eventual undoing.
Asked whether the team had understood the reason behind Ricciardo’s troubles, Permane told Autosport: “Honestly no.
“I don’t know and he doesn’t either. We sat down and talked, tried to figure it out.
“I was certainly worried that he was overthinking things – he was concerned about the tyres, that they couldn’t cope with the speed he would be asking of them.
“It felt like he was using his huge experience to second-guess things that potentially weren’t correct, because Yuki wasn’t and he was driving as quick as he could and it was working.”
Ricciardo showcased his vintage best in sporadic spells – including a fourth place in the Miami Sprint – but such outings never became a springboard for a sustained run.
“That was a tough time and then of course we went to Miami and Daniel put it fourth on the grid. And you think, ‘Ah, it’s all clicked.’ That was the Daniel I knew at Renault.
“You do that in the Sprint on Saturday morning, then you go for [grand prix] qualifying in the afternoon and he’s 18th. It was a bit of a mystery, honestly.”
F1’s latest generation change
As a result, Red Bull called time on Ricciardo’s comeback venture, with replacement Liam Lawson having since been called up to partner Max Verstappen at Red Bull.
Lawson’s promotion comes at a time when multiple teams are hedging their bets on emerging talents owing to the impression the next generation made last season.
Alongside Lawson, Oliver Bearman at Haas and Franco Colapinto at Williams thrived when thrown in the deep end mid-season, the former among six rookies in 2025.
Put to him whether it could be a case that the established names have encountered more difficulties with the current cars amid Ricciardo’s tribulations at McLaren in 2022 and Lewis Hamilton’s recurring one-lap problems in 2024, Permane said: “Look at Fernando [Alonso] in Spa last year. He was immense, incredible.
“I know it’s a convenient thing to say with people like Colapinto coming in, Bearman… and certainly Franco looked amazing in his first few races.
“But it’s very difficult – one of the things we said at the time was that it’s great when a driver comes in and does that, but doing it every week, that’s the hard thing.
“If you look at his [Colapinto’s] last couple of weekends, he hasn’t quite been so… in Mexico he was outstanding although he didn’t qualify so well, then Brazil of course wasn’t particularly good, Las Vegas not good either. I think to sustain that level week in, week out, for those young guys, that’s where it gets tough.
“There’s a massive amount they have to do away from the track as well, so they’re not just left to sit with engineers and focus on that.
“There’s all sorts of PR stuff which comes with Formula 1 now, and I’m pretty sure these young guys aren’t used to, so there’s distractions everywhere.
“But there’s no doubt that they’re impressive, that’s for sure.”
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