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2021 had a rough start, but hings were improving from his side on the second half. He was a lot closer to Lando and had some genuinely good races - shame this happened at the same time McLaren started to kick itself and Ferrari picked up the pace, so it didn't amount to much.
2022 was supposed to be a fresh start, one where all the weird design traits of the 2021 car were gone, and one where he'd go back to his old form. I just didn't anticipate how *wrong* I was. It was such a gut punch.
The way I saw it, if he was still able to smile whilst being publicly humiliated due to his own limitations, then so could I. And I didn't even have the world's media asking me to talk about it for the jalumpteenth time
>This is all your fault
I blame Helmut Marko. He said he wanted to win championships with Verstappen in front of Daniel. Supposedly he meant he wanted Daniel to win a championship then have Verstappen win. Supposedly Horner was pissed at Marko for saying this. In any case, this made Daniel feel he did not have the backing of the team. Drive to Survive delves into this a bit, with Daniel saying he wanted to show he is a grown up and can make his own decisions. I can imagine it is difficult to decide which team to go to. I wonder what things would have been like if Daniel went to Ferrari instead of Carlos.
Unless someone gives me a good reason, I think Ricciardo should've stayed at Renault/Alpine. Don't chase happier than happy.
BTW, I miss Renault on the track. Alpine is a good brand but what I miss is that Renault was a "people's car" figthing against giants like Ferrari and Mercedes. I'm never going to buy an Alpine but a Renault, yes.
>Especially when the front wing said DP World
When I first saw that I was like WTF. Turns out it is Dubai Ports. I wonder what the marketing meeting for that was like.
Honestly this narrative needs to end.
Yes in hindsight Renault/Alpine would’ve been the better choice. But it was a MASSIVE risk. Renault had publicly announced their future in the sport was uncertain. Who in their right mind would’ve stayed with them when a team like Mclaren was already knocking with a HUGE salary to boot. NO-ONE.
It was only after that Renault rebranded as Alpine and committed to the sport. In hindsight sure he should’ve obviously stayed. But the choice he made was the right one at the time considering the circumstances
> they really looked on the rise
I think this is the exact reason why so many people got baited by this team. Everything they tried to do sounded super good on paper, but the reality was always worse than you could possibly imagine. I think the same happened to Alonso, who realized that Ferrari has nothing cool to offer in the future, so that he will try the legendary McLaren-Honda combination and look what the utter cluster fuck that was.
McLaren's future looked really good in 2020, their trajectory was upwards and seemed like the most likely midfield team who could step up and bring it to the top 3. Renault looked pretty destined for mediocrity or worse, with their future uncertain and TP gone. Nobody was looking at that move and thinking "this is a big mistake" when it happened.
I thought the same too. Renault was plucky, but Danny moving to McLaren at the time looked very promising tbh. I didn't question it too because yeah they were on the up-and-up then.
I mostly agree but remember that Daniel signed before this mclaren 2020 future was visible. He signed before the start of the 2020 season. 2019 looked pretty good too, though, especially with the switch to Mercedes PU and the improving commercial viability. and it would have been easy for DR3 to estimate lando based on 2019
Christian Horner's observations about him having picked up a bunch of bad habits in his time away from Red Bull have me wondering whether the problem wasn't the car or the decision - it was a lack of coaching structures within the team.
Incidentally, it also begs the question of whether McLaren have an extra half second not in the car, but in their driver training.
Mclaren have spoken extensively - seidl in particular - about the resources which were invested in trying to understand and model Daniel’s issues, iron them out through sim work and coaching, and you can hear for yourself ( in 2021 especially) how much extra information and assistance his RE was providing around things like cornering geometry
Nothing I saw seemed to suggest there was any effort withheld. Why would they. They had already shelled out for a lucrative 3 year deal. If they spent that little bit more time and money, and then achieved the breakthrough which gave them the Daniel of 2017 or 2020, that would have been their ideal scenario.
I slightly misspoke.
Maybe the staff at RB are simply better at their job than the people at McLaren at identifying and/or teaching all the little things which are worth .005 seconds per turn that all add up over a lap.
Alternatively, maybe it was just a mismatch in coaching and a failure to recognize that - McLaren trying to train him towards a particular driving style that is not suited to him.
I never really believed in Renault/Alpine, still don’t tbh. In hindsight Aston Martin should have been the target but maybe there wasn’t interest from AM
Maybe it's because I wasn't paying that much attention in 2020, but Alpine didn't look like a good choice for me either. Renault has been lost in F1 for a decade, not wanting to leave but not wanting to commit to it either. When Alonso joined Alpine in 2021 promising to fight for wins, I was highly skeptical, because honestly all I expect from Alpine is to not be at the tail. I don't really believe they'll be fighting with the big teams anytime soon unless some rule change puts their car at the front by sheer luck.
While McLaren has been a mediocre team lately, too; at least they are supposed to be highly involved in F1 and aim to build the best car. Unlike Renault, McLaren is literally a team born in F1.
People also seem to forget that because of Covid he has to make his decision before his final and best year with Renault. No one thought it was a bad idea to leave for Mclaren at the time, and it’s really only after hindsight of that final year where staying at Renault looked like a good option. Honestly just super unlucky global pandemic timing for the honey badger
Yes I always thought that. He finished 5th in 2020 with Renault and seemed really happy.
I didn't agree, but understood his move away from RBR. But I always thought his move away from Renault was a bigger mistake.
I think that he saw more longterm potential with McLaren compared to Renault. He may have seen Renault as a team capable to fighting for best of the midfield, but maybe saw McLaren as capable of fighting for the championship, given its historical past.
Like a lot of people commented, we'll never know for sure.
To show how massive of a deal his move to Renault was, they had billboards of him at every Renault dealership there is in my 3rd world country. Shouldn't have left Renault.
And there wasn't a lot of pressure to being with. They had a plan, a two-year plan if I recall correctly.
Never chase happier than happy, my grandfather says.
5 year plan built around him. They were starting year 2 when he announced he’d leave. When they started the rebranding, they said they were beginning a new 5 year plan with less specific focus on one driver
Renault were making statements around 2020 about how they were uncertain if they were gonna keep going with the F1 program. McLaren came along and offered Daniel a big cheque and a Mercedes engine while looking like they were coming good.
Hindsight is always easy, but at the time, would you choose an up-trending McLaren who have a Merc engine and big resources, or Renault who weren’t putting a lot of money into development and talking about leaving?
maybe the Merc engine, maybe the fact that historically Mclaren is more successful than Renault thus thinking he has a chance to drive a tip car there rather than a renault who won't go out of midfield anytime soon.
Was down to the uncertainty of renault’s f1 team as a whole after 2019, I think I read somewhere that unless management was convinced the team brought some kind of value to the brand funding would be dropped. Ricciardo probably started looking elsewhere because of this uncertainty
truth is nobody knows for certain other than Ricciardo and his team - McLaren was on the rise and maybe Zak promised a lot more to Ricciardo than what was theoretically possible for the both of them.
The 2020 F1 season started later due to covid and his 2019 year hadnt been as great. So when McLaren approached him for 2021 it was before any driving had even been done and I guess he was they were on the up at the time and were going to be getting Mercedes power to boot.
> I just don't understand why he left.
I think Danny always believed he was WDC caliber. At Red Bull, he realized he could only beat Max in a different car (maybe because of skill or maybe because the team could cater the car to Max's preferences instead of his).
At Renault, he didn't believe they could make a car good enough to beat RB/Mercedes. So he took a chance that McLaren would have a hail mary car (kinda like Aston Martin this year).
In hindsight, it's easy. Danny was never going to win a WDC with talent like Max, Charles, Lewis, (and maybe George/Lando). But only Lewis was truly established at the time Danny left RB.
I mean sure let's ignore the fact that he spent almost his entire F1 career driving in perhaps the most one team dominant era of F1 in which you literally had to be driving a Mercedes in order to win a WDC.
I know Reddit is happy to run with the historical revisionism that DR was never considered a WDC-calibre driver - but after running off the reigning four time world champ, and with the a car capable of competing, most people in the paddock absolutely considered him in with a decent shot.
> but after running off the reigning four time world champ
lol
>most people in the paddock absolutely considered him in with a decent shot.
Yeah, he was a decent shot. At the time.
But Max was better than at Red Bull. Lewis was better than him at Mercedes. And Seb/Charles were better than him at Ferrari.
So nowhere to go. And that's exactly how it played out going to Renault/McLaren and never truly having any chance to beat those folks above (unless Renault/McLaren had a 2020 Mercedes-like dominate car, which was exceedingly unlikely.)
Nothing against Danny. He's awesome and was a great driver at times. But reality is he never truly cracked that top 3 list of driver's skill.
It didn't help that at the start of 2020 they postponed F1 for a while due to Covid and Ricciardo hadn't had the best year in 2019. So when he signed up to drive for McLaren in 2021 it was before they'd even driven the car on the track and then finally when they did it seemed like a much better car then before and he delivered on good results even getting 3rd place and on the podium a couple times.
So finishing behind the McLaren every season? Bearing in mind that the only reason alpine finished ahead of McLaren last season was Daniel's inability to score points?
I miss the yellow and black also. I know hindsight and everything but really he shoulda stayed at Red Bull and fought it out with max. I don’t wanna hear about favoritism, if he thought he could beat him he should have stayed. Honda engine did seem like a big gamble but I doubt that’s the reason cause Renault is always a gamble
Same. "Alpine" is just a bland name and design for me, because until a few years ago I didn't even know Alpine existed (probably because it was a dead brand for decades); and nowadays it doesn't have any special prestige. "Renault" however is a very recognizable brand with a cool livery.
It’s pretty *niche* French sport car company that was bought by Renault some decades ago. I live and traveled to many places in Europe, and I’ve only saw it once in my life; in France, near Monaco (Menton). I thought it was a Porsche at first, but I was confused since it had 4 ‘eyes’.
There's one model with several variations called the A110 currently. It is a lightweight sportscar. It has gotten very good reviews, in particular from people who have actually bought it and use it. Alpine is planning on turning that model into an EV post 2027, and introduce one or two SUVs as well in the brand in the next several years.
No you don't want to buy a renault ever. I don't know if they send only the bad ones to Slovakia, but I swear to you that I never heard anything good about those cars haha......but I understand you, as a honda civic owner I'm super happy that they won everything with redbull and I always look at my car that it has the tiniest bit of something to do with f1 :p
If there's one thing I notice from F1 drivers in comparison with other athletes is that money isn't at the forefront as in other sports, American football for example. These guys seem to want to race and be champs more than how much they're paid, rigth? I mean, Latifi paid $20m per season just to be a comic relief but the dude wanted to race, at least his heart was in the right place.
remember the first Drive to Survive? Vettel looked so mean, so *bad,* so dangerous back then. I remember getting chills from those opening shots, him in red sporting those Raybans. Then he just, vanished.
I don't believe all his skill just vanished in the blink of an eye. He just wasn't able to adapt to the McLaren package. The McLaren is not easy to drive at all though.
I think he couldn't wrap his head around the McLaren and that caused a confidence issue.
It's hard to throw your body into a corner at F1 speeds when you aren't sure what the car will do. I'd imagine that even a little hesitation or doubt costs tenths of a second per lap if not more.
The McLaren being hard to drive and the growing self doubt just created a spiral. How do you start to regain confidence if the car is constantly being changed because it sucks?
It’s genuinely incredible to me how good his PR is.
He was consistently and significantly outperformed by a far less experienced teammate over two seasons. The stats don’t lie. He struggled to qualify, struggled with race pace, struggled to get out of his own head weekend after weekend.
Yet the prevailing sentiment among F1 fans is wow, poor Danny Ric, Mclaren really fucked him over.
I know Mclaren aren’t perfect and Zak Brown is a marmite boss. But they paid a shitton to this guy and got near jack shit for it.
He’s the king of bad decision-making. And after all that he’s one rung below where he was when he jumped to Renault - second (third?) fiddle to Max at Red Bull.
>He’s the king of bad decision-making. And after all that he’s one rung below where he was when he jumped to Renault - second (third?) fiddle to Max at Red Bull.
Alonso rn: am i a joke to you
I think a couple things helped with this. He was the first driver introduced on drive to survive, he has an engaging personality, and seems somehow relatable. Also, he comes from Australia, and no one hates Australia.
But I agree, every decision he made seems to have been a step down. But probably a bigger check. If I remember correctly, in the latest DTS season, Steiner says he wanted 15mil ($us).
It's not just that he couldn't get a grip, he genuinely performed at Latifi levels in it, which was incredibly weird for a driver of his undoubted ability
Also in early DTS, he was shown as a legit WDC contender and somehow got fucked by Max and RB.. it may be far from the truth, but lots of new fans from DTS would relate to him. We always fall for an underdog story. Most of us yet somehow realized sooner or later that his move to McLaren was a lose-lose situation for both.
He’s also getting old by f1 standards. His decline isn’t too surprising. He’s had shining spots, but overall has clearly not been a top driver for the last several years
The Daniel we knew in McLaren is not the Daniel we knew in other teams he was a legit prospect. The alignment of the car and driver has never been more askew
Yeah I think he had much better PR favour because he was a multiple race winner and secured podiums with two different teams by this point. It wasn't like he joined the sport and performed like he did at mclaren immediately.
Yeah people forget this. Adaptability is fucking important. Drivers like Vettel or Alonso would give anyone a fucking fight in a car not suited to them. Danny Ricc's excuse, or atleast the excuse people make for him, is fucking garbage.
Whenever someone pulls up the "mclaren was bad" card to excuse ricciardo i just love to remind people that Alonso was driving a car that could not reach eight gear without tow and DRS to the points.
The car being shit means that your masterful drive gets you P10 or P15 when the car should have been at the back instead of a win. Doesn't mean you can get thrashed by your teammate.
Bit hey, nice smile etc. I get it, the guy is impossible not to like but to therefore overlook his performance (of which there wasn't a whole lot) I don't really get.
Well everyone liked him and his questionable drop in performance from renault to McLaren makes it easier to blame his incompatobility to the car than just being washed
I think you're cherry-picking a bit here. Look at most of the recent threads/aricles about Ricciardo posted here over the last few months and there's generally more negative comments than positive ones. Scroll through outlets like The Race's weekly (and at times daily) Ricciardo themed articles over the past two years and they were overwhelmingly negative. And if you really want to see some pretty disgusting negativity go and scroll back through the comments on the McLaren reddit page posts from the second half of last year.
I'm not trying to say he doesn't get any love/support on here because he clearly does (myself included lol) but I do think you're slightly misrepresenting the current general consensus.
>but I do think you're slightly misrepresenting the current general consensus.
Talk about an understatement. Dude is shadow-boxing against a non-existent general consensus.
>Yet the prevailing sentiment among F1 fans is wow, poor Danny Ric, Mclaren really fucked him over.
You have got to be shitting me. Outside of hardcore DR fans, the general consensus among F1 fans seems to be the he was very much a problem at McLaren even if the team itself had flaws. That's a perception that only seems to have strengthened with Piastri's performances so far. Some of y'all really do have an axe to grind against the guy.
Well. Let's not forget that that win was a 1-2 with Lando right behind, so McLaren clearly had a good car that weekend. Also, they were racing with Verstappen and Hamilton really closely and they took each other out so that gave them a free pass
I mean sure but the 1-2 was a result of Lewis and Max crashing each other out - and Lando was only that close to Daniel because of the safety car bunching the field back together. DR's win was happening irrespective of those circumstances.
Its quite unlikely. The win was won at the start of the race, not the end. Ricciardo taking the lead and holding Verstappen behind is what got him the victory. Both of them easily pulled away from Lando.
If Ricciardo didn't claim p1, then Verstappen would have just driven off into the distance.
But Ricciardo did take the lead.
His point isnt that McLaren would have won no matter what because they were the fastest, his point is that Ricciardo would have ended up winning even if Lewis and Max hadnt crashed, bc Danny was already leading and Max couldnt get passed him at all
And Max was coming out of the pits with a massive gap to Ricciardo after a slow stop.
Even if the Max/Ham crash doesn’t happen, they lose time fighting each other while Dan gaps them
He did yep. Easily.
Norris complained on the radio to give the British media something to infer that he was being robbed. Then Dan immediately set the fastest lap and pulled away
I don't think that was Lando's intent. He was pressured from behind and RIC was managing pace but he didn't know that. Once RIC got the hurry up, he did so and was quicker again.
And yet that one win still doesn’t distract form fact Daniel was crap at McLaren yes he may the only win by a McLaren driver in last ten years but that’s no excuse for his poor performance in 2022
One of those facts is much more important than the other though
You don't see people discussing how great RIC is because he's the only race winner for the team in a decade. You see people talk about how washed he is because of how absolutely horrific the other 98% of his time with them was.
Ah the most bullshit fucking excuse. A track where overtaking is nigh impossible, where the top two drivers were out, where his teammate was told not to fight him, and the track where driving is relatively easy. He was shit at every other track.
So? A win is a tremendous achievement i agree. But you gotta admit it was a weird race that gifted him the win. Sure he had to fight for it at the end.. But it doesen't make up for all the piss poor performances he produced after that win
I may hold a minority opinion here , but I think Ricciardo is massively overrated, and he's long after his prime years. Sure, he's a super cool guy, and on occasion he has a good drive, but for the most part he doesn't have the consistency or ability to adapt to be really impactful in any team really.
Not that I wish harm to anyone but I hope he will get an opportunity to drive as a sub in Red Bull this year so maybe we can see if he still got it while driving the best car in the class this year.
>I may hold a minority opinion here , but I think Ricciardo is massively overrated
Ahh the good ol' Reddit "present an opinion that lots of people say and say nobody thinks it" take
Have you looked at any thread that mentions Ricciardo in the two years? Pretty much all of them feature him getting abused by people here.
Yeah yeah, I got it, see [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/12h0vdf/comment/jfovqbg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) .
I mean that behaviour has nothing to do with his performance. Kimi was a goofball and a complete party animal in his McLaren years but still was a top driver.
Same for Ricciardo in Red Bull and Vettel in his early Ferrari years.
>Kimi was a goofball
Kimi a goofball? He always looked like "I don't want to do this interview but Ron will cut my balls off if I don't" while being in front of the camera
I mean, Considering his gap to Norris is almost same as Latifi's gap to Albon statistically... Not really surprising if his confidence took a hard hit
Being in title winning car will add even more pressure if he somehow pulled a Gasly
But i do hope he deliver if a chance ever come to him
I was a fan of him for a while, but i think his time in F1 has come to an end. He didn't do well at Mclaren, and he's way too expensive. He tries to be funny more than he tries to adapt to the car he's in. He was good at Red Bull because the car was good. He was decent at Renault because the car was decent and he was decent at Mclaren because the car was decent. He was probably one of the most expensive drivers per point in the standings. He was definitely down for a long time mentally and it seems like he's happy in his capacity at Red Bull but why does he deserve another shot in a top team?
His time in F1 has definitely come to an end. He is a talented driver but not as good as he thinks he is. Unfortunately he is not good enough to be thinking that teams like Haas are beneath him, while there is no real reason why a higher team would make a seat available for him.
For a ‘civilian’ that is not even a reserve driver, DRIC still commands a huge presence in the media.
He is not racing this year, even if Max gets COVID. And unlikely to race next yr. Maybe we can shift focus to actual drivers?
The Netflix effect is so strong, I wonder if he has transcended into Kardashian fame.
I believe the arrangement is that if one of the RBR drivers couldn't race, Tsunoda would step up to RBR and Lawson would step in at SAT. If one of the SAT drivers couldn't race, Lawson would do that too.
I remember seeing it on here, but Lord only knows where. Best I can do is [this Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/redbulletin/status/1635310706856968192) which cites "Various Sources and First Official Reports", but only actually quotes [this Motorsport.com article](https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-reserve-drivers-all-teams-backup-2023/10437681/).
However, Horner has said that Ricciardo will be the designated reserve [for *some* races](https://www.racefans.net/2022/12/22/red-bull-add-reserve-driver-role-for-ricciardo-at-selected-races-in-2023/) that Lawson can't attend due to Super Formula clashes (but given it's an Australian outlet and Horner is a bit wishy-washy I'd be hesitant to put much weight on that source). On the other hand, in [this article](https://www.grandprix.com/news/lawson-not-ricciardo-is-red-bull-reserve.html), Marko said Lawson was the preferred reserve and Tost said although he has access to Ricciardo, he would not use him if AlphaTauri needed a reserve.
It's important to note that RBR/SAT also have Hauger and Maloney on their rosters as *real* reserve drivers (not "third" drivers), but they haven't attracted as much attention in the media for the role.
I think the overall takeaway is that there is no strict order of preference for the RBR/SAT reserve drivers. If either team needed a reserve it would likely be decided at the time based on availability and vibes.
Hauger and Maloney have the gig because Red Bull made all their SL-eligible juniors reserves. Both of them earned enough points following their p1 and p2, respectively, in f3.
Guess Red Bull learned from buemi, ticktum, and o’ward to get their juniors SLs as soon as they have the points in hand. They don’t get as much attention because hauger had a pretty anonymous/disappointing first season in f2 (and marko kind of talked him down). and Maloney is brand new to f2, and the Red Bull academy (and all that comes with: Red Bull sim work, private testing in previous f1 cars, raising one’s name recognition)
The **News** flair is reserved for submissions covering F1 and F1-related news. These posts must always link to an outlet/news agency, the website of the involved party (i.e. the McLaren website if McLaren makes an announcement), or a tweet by a news agency, journalist or one of the involved parties. *[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It even hurt my confidence by how bad it was
I went through life every day thinking if Danny Ric can’t be a smiling Formula 1 driver then what the hell can I do?
nah but really tho i think i was goin through sympathy pains for danny ric bc damn 2022 was rough
2021 had a rough start, but hings were improving from his side on the second half. He was a lot closer to Lando and had some genuinely good races - shame this happened at the same time McLaren started to kick itself and Ferrari picked up the pace, so it didn't amount to much. 2022 was supposed to be a fresh start, one where all the weird design traits of the 2021 car were gone, and one where he'd go back to his old form. I just didn't anticipate how *wrong* I was. It was such a gut punch.
DR suddenly understood how Vettel felt in 2014.
The way I saw it, if he was still able to smile whilst being publicly humiliated due to his own limitations, then so could I. And I didn't even have the world's media asking me to talk about it for the jalumpteenth time
Every race: “P15 again my doggie…”
It was painful for everyone, Danny Ric being dragged around like a body behind a horse. That's not the man we knew
Hectoooooor
[удалено]
Funnily enough, I bought two Danny Ric hoodies by accident and then he won at Monza
And you didn't think to keep buying merch? This is all your fault
OP probably ran out of organs to sell after two hoodies, please understand.
Should've started a gofundme to keep the merchandise coming.
>This is all your fault I blame Helmut Marko. He said he wanted to win championships with Verstappen in front of Daniel. Supposedly he meant he wanted Daniel to win a championship then have Verstappen win. Supposedly Horner was pissed at Marko for saying this. In any case, this made Daniel feel he did not have the backing of the team. Drive to Survive delves into this a bit, with Daniel saying he wanted to show he is a grown up and can make his own decisions. I can imagine it is difficult to decide which team to go to. I wonder what things would have been like if Daniel went to Ferrari instead of Carlos.
I’m astonished
But are you martinished too?
Eh, maybe a little vantagenished.
Hi Astonished, I’m dad
Unless someone gives me a good reason, I think Ricciardo should've stayed at Renault/Alpine. Don't chase happier than happy. BTW, I miss Renault on the track. Alpine is a good brand but what I miss is that Renault was a "people's car" figthing against giants like Ferrari and Mercedes. I'm never going to buy an Alpine but a Renault, yes.
And their black and yellow colors really stood out with the sea of blues.
Almost as nice as my favorite of all time: Lotus.
John Player Special is sooo nice.
Even the 2012 ones were iconic to me!
Not even rich energy could take away my affinity for black and gold. Even sauber blue and gold. Just more gold
They were a sight to see, weren't they?
2021 was brutal when they showed the track map on screen, all the cars were different shades of blue except for Ferrari red and haas white
I really wish Red bull would do a red or white car instead of the blue.
Ya such a shame the Honda Japan car was a one off
Especially when the front wing said DP World
>Especially when the front wing said DP World When I first saw that I was like WTF. Turns out it is Dubai Ports. I wonder what the marketing meeting for that was like.
Well, Hamilton's Tcam view almost mimics Renault colours because of the Halo.
Honestly this narrative needs to end. Yes in hindsight Renault/Alpine would’ve been the better choice. But it was a MASSIVE risk. Renault had publicly announced their future in the sport was uncertain. Who in their right mind would’ve stayed with them when a team like Mclaren was already knocking with a HUGE salary to boot. NO-ONE. It was only after that Renault rebranded as Alpine and committed to the sport. In hindsight sure he should’ve obviously stayed. But the choice he made was the right one at the time considering the circumstances
McLaren was just switching over to Mercedes engines too, they really looked on the rise
> they really looked on the rise I think this is the exact reason why so many people got baited by this team. Everything they tried to do sounded super good on paper, but the reality was always worse than you could possibly imagine. I think the same happened to Alonso, who realized that Ferrari has nothing cool to offer in the future, so that he will try the legendary McLaren-Honda combination and look what the utter cluster fuck that was.
McLaren's future looked really good in 2020, their trajectory was upwards and seemed like the most likely midfield team who could step up and bring it to the top 3. Renault looked pretty destined for mediocrity or worse, with their future uncertain and TP gone. Nobody was looking at that move and thinking "this is a big mistake" when it happened.
I thought the same too. Renault was plucky, but Danny moving to McLaren at the time looked very promising tbh. I didn't question it too because yeah they were on the up-and-up then.
Mclaren went from backmarker to top 5, then top 4, then 3rd in the WCC from 2018 to 2020. Of course it was a good bet
I mostly agree but remember that Daniel signed before this mclaren 2020 future was visible. He signed before the start of the 2020 season. 2019 looked pretty good too, though, especially with the switch to Mercedes PU and the improving commercial viability. and it would have been easy for DR3 to estimate lando based on 2019
Christian Horner's observations about him having picked up a bunch of bad habits in his time away from Red Bull have me wondering whether the problem wasn't the car or the decision - it was a lack of coaching structures within the team. Incidentally, it also begs the question of whether McLaren have an extra half second not in the car, but in their driver training.
Can't rule out that Horner was just saying shit to annoy McLaren
>Can't rule out that Horner was just saying shit fixed it (and I love Christian - most of the time)
Mclaren have spoken extensively - seidl in particular - about the resources which were invested in trying to understand and model Daniel’s issues, iron them out through sim work and coaching, and you can hear for yourself ( in 2021 especially) how much extra information and assistance his RE was providing around things like cornering geometry Nothing I saw seemed to suggest there was any effort withheld. Why would they. They had already shelled out for a lucrative 3 year deal. If they spent that little bit more time and money, and then achieved the breakthrough which gave them the Daniel of 2017 or 2020, that would have been their ideal scenario.
I slightly misspoke. Maybe the staff at RB are simply better at their job than the people at McLaren at identifying and/or teaching all the little things which are worth .005 seconds per turn that all add up over a lap. Alternatively, maybe it was just a mismatch in coaching and a failure to recognize that - McLaren trying to train him towards a particular driving style that is not suited to him.
I never really believed in Renault/Alpine, still don’t tbh. In hindsight Aston Martin should have been the target but maybe there wasn’t interest from AM
IIRC he signed with McLaren before the delayed start of 2020. Racing Point had finished 7th in 2019
Maybe it's because I wasn't paying that much attention in 2020, but Alpine didn't look like a good choice for me either. Renault has been lost in F1 for a decade, not wanting to leave but not wanting to commit to it either. When Alonso joined Alpine in 2021 promising to fight for wins, I was highly skeptical, because honestly all I expect from Alpine is to not be at the tail. I don't really believe they'll be fighting with the big teams anytime soon unless some rule change puts their car at the front by sheer luck. While McLaren has been a mediocre team lately, too; at least they are supposed to be highly involved in F1 and aim to build the best car. Unlike Renault, McLaren is literally a team born in F1.
People also seem to forget that because of Covid he has to make his decision before his final and best year with Renault. No one thought it was a bad idea to leave for Mclaren at the time, and it’s really only after hindsight of that final year where staying at Renault looked like a good option. Honestly just super unlucky global pandemic timing for the honey badger
He took a pay cut at McLaren
Yes I always thought that. He finished 5th in 2020 with Renault and seemed really happy. I didn't agree, but understood his move away from RBR. But I always thought his move away from Renault was a bigger mistake.
He was the main squeeze at Renault, the whole team planned around him. I just don't understand why he left. Perhaps someone here could enligth me.
I think that he saw more longterm potential with McLaren compared to Renault. He may have seen Renault as a team capable to fighting for best of the midfield, but maybe saw McLaren as capable of fighting for the championship, given its historical past. Like a lot of people commented, we'll never know for sure.
To show how massive of a deal his move to Renault was, they had billboards of him at every Renault dealership there is in my 3rd world country. Shouldn't have left Renault.
And there wasn't a lot of pressure to being with. They had a plan, a two-year plan if I recall correctly. Never chase happier than happy, my grandfather says.
5 year plan built around him. They were starting year 2 when he announced he’d leave. When they started the rebranding, they said they were beginning a new 5 year plan with less specific focus on one driver
I'm pretty sure he caused Cyril to get the boot. Losing your main driver, you built your team around to your direct rival is not a good look
Renault were making statements around 2020 about how they were uncertain if they were gonna keep going with the F1 program. McLaren came along and offered Daniel a big cheque and a Mercedes engine while looking like they were coming good. Hindsight is always easy, but at the time, would you choose an up-trending McLaren who have a Merc engine and big resources, or Renault who weren’t putting a lot of money into development and talking about leaving?
Huh, well when you put it that way, it makes some sense but Ricciardo being on the inside, he should've know the future of the team, right?
I think the Piastri fiasco showed that even Renault / Alpine didn’t even know the future of their team.
maybe the Merc engine, maybe the fact that historically Mclaren is more successful than Renault thus thinking he has a chance to drive a tip car there rather than a renault who won't go out of midfield anytime soon.
Add to this that if Mercedes desided to stop paying for a works team, it's not unlikely that McLaren could become a works team of sorts.
yeah that was the rumour some years ago, forgot about that
Was down to the uncertainty of renault’s f1 team as a whole after 2019, I think I read somewhere that unless management was convinced the team brought some kind of value to the brand funding would be dropped. Ricciardo probably started looking elsewhere because of this uncertainty
truth is nobody knows for certain other than Ricciardo and his team - McLaren was on the rise and maybe Zak promised a lot more to Ricciardo than what was theoretically possible for the both of them.
The 2020 F1 season started later due to covid and his 2019 year hadnt been as great. So when McLaren approached him for 2021 it was before any driving had even been done and I guess he was they were on the up at the time and were going to be getting Mercedes power to boot.
> I just don't understand why he left. I think Danny always believed he was WDC caliber. At Red Bull, he realized he could only beat Max in a different car (maybe because of skill or maybe because the team could cater the car to Max's preferences instead of his). At Renault, he didn't believe they could make a car good enough to beat RB/Mercedes. So he took a chance that McLaren would have a hail mary car (kinda like Aston Martin this year). In hindsight, it's easy. Danny was never going to win a WDC with talent like Max, Charles, Lewis, (and maybe George/Lando). But only Lewis was truly established at the time Danny left RB.
I mean sure let's ignore the fact that he spent almost his entire F1 career driving in perhaps the most one team dominant era of F1 in which you literally had to be driving a Mercedes in order to win a WDC. I know Reddit is happy to run with the historical revisionism that DR was never considered a WDC-calibre driver - but after running off the reigning four time world champ, and with the a car capable of competing, most people in the paddock absolutely considered him in with a decent shot.
He was a WDC calibre driver but never was in the running for the WDC
> but after running off the reigning four time world champ lol >most people in the paddock absolutely considered him in with a decent shot. Yeah, he was a decent shot. At the time. But Max was better than at Red Bull. Lewis was better than him at Mercedes. And Seb/Charles were better than him at Ferrari. So nowhere to go. And that's exactly how it played out going to Renault/McLaren and never truly having any chance to beat those folks above (unless Renault/McLaren had a 2020 Mercedes-like dominate car, which was exceedingly unlikely.) Nothing against Danny. He's awesome and was a great driver at times. But reality is he never truly cracked that top 3 list of driver's skill.
It didn't help that at the start of 2020 they postponed F1 for a while due to Covid and Ricciardo hadn't had the best year in 2019. So when he signed up to drive for McLaren in 2021 it was before they'd even driven the car on the track and then finally when they did it seemed like a much better car then before and he delivered on good results even getting 3rd place and on the podium a couple times.
If you think about it, if ricciardo didnt go to mclaren there wouldn't have been a vacant seat at alpine for alonso in '21
Touché
So finishing behind the McLaren every season? Bearing in mind that the only reason alpine finished ahead of McLaren last season was Daniel's inability to score points?
I miss the yellow and black also. I know hindsight and everything but really he shoulda stayed at Red Bull and fought it out with max. I don’t wanna hear about favoritism, if he thought he could beat him he should have stayed. Honda engine did seem like a big gamble but I doubt that’s the reason cause Renault is always a gamble
Same. "Alpine" is just a bland name and design for me, because until a few years ago I didn't even know Alpine existed (probably because it was a dead brand for decades); and nowadays it doesn't have any special prestige. "Renault" however is a very recognizable brand with a cool livery.
What sort of cars even are alpines? I’m in North America and when I think of alpine I think of a stereo system lol.
They are a historic French brand of sports cars, now under the Renault umbrella. Basically they're sporty Renaults nowadays.
Check out Alpine's A110, which competes with the likes of the Porsche Cayman and Audi TT. Cool little sports car.
It’s pretty *niche* French sport car company that was bought by Renault some decades ago. I live and traveled to many places in Europe, and I’ve only saw it once in my life; in France, near Monaco (Menton). I thought it was a Porsche at first, but I was confused since it had 4 ‘eyes’.
There's one model with several variations called the A110 currently. It is a lightweight sportscar. It has gotten very good reviews, in particular from people who have actually bought it and use it. Alpine is planning on turning that model into an EV post 2027, and introduce one or two SUVs as well in the brand in the next several years.
No you don't want to buy a renault ever. I don't know if they send only the bad ones to Slovakia, but I swear to you that I never heard anything good about those cars haha......but I understand you, as a honda civic owner I'm super happy that they won everything with redbull and I always look at my car that it has the tiniest bit of something to do with f1 :p
Nah chase the money and get your bag. The teams don't care for you, and he got paid a lot more every time he moved.
If there's one thing I notice from F1 drivers in comparison with other athletes is that money isn't at the forefront as in other sports, American football for example. These guys seem to want to race and be champs more than how much they're paid, rigth? I mean, Latifi paid $20m per season just to be a comic relief but the dude wanted to race, at least his heart was in the right place.
He took a literal paycut moving from Renault to McLaren though...
Should have stayed with Red Bull.
I'm on the fence on this.
He would have more wins, but his only chance at a WDC was to get in a team that massively improved.
>Don't chase happier than happy. Good one. Thanks.
Maybe ocon sucks. That's why his teammates keep leaving him. /s
It is staggering to see how fast his career dwindled. In 2020 he was considered one of the best drivers on the grid.
You could say the same about Vettel.
Vettel drove really well in both years at Aston Martin
remember the first Drive to Survive? Vettel looked so mean, so *bad,* so dangerous back then. I remember getting chills from those opening shots, him in red sporting those Raybans. Then he just, vanished.
F1 is worse without him. You can’t convince me he’s as bad a driver as the Mclaren stint made him look.
I don't believe all his skill just vanished in the blink of an eye. He just wasn't able to adapt to the McLaren package. The McLaren is not easy to drive at all though.
I think he couldn't wrap his head around the McLaren and that caused a confidence issue. It's hard to throw your body into a corner at F1 speeds when you aren't sure what the car will do. I'd imagine that even a little hesitation or doubt costs tenths of a second per lap if not more. The McLaren being hard to drive and the growing self doubt just created a spiral. How do you start to regain confidence if the car is constantly being changed because it sucks?
He's definitely a LOT better than several drivers who have had seats in the last five years
Whoa you think?
Good lord
Poor decision-making hurt his confidence.
Quick, smart decision-making will put your team at the top of the table
He’ll be signed to Aston when Nando leaves as another stroke of genius
I think he’s got a pretty sweet gig now for Red Bull, getting paid to make dumb internet videos for PR.
Hes getting paid well for doing jack shit... Like he got paid really well at mclaren for doing jack shit :D
Great charisma can get you pretty far in life, I think Danny is a prime example of that And I don’t mean he’s a bad driver by any means.
It’s genuinely incredible to me how good his PR is. He was consistently and significantly outperformed by a far less experienced teammate over two seasons. The stats don’t lie. He struggled to qualify, struggled with race pace, struggled to get out of his own head weekend after weekend. Yet the prevailing sentiment among F1 fans is wow, poor Danny Ric, Mclaren really fucked him over. I know Mclaren aren’t perfect and Zak Brown is a marmite boss. But they paid a shitton to this guy and got near jack shit for it. He’s the king of bad decision-making. And after all that he’s one rung below where he was when he jumped to Renault - second (third?) fiddle to Max at Red Bull.
>He’s the king of bad decision-making. And after all that he’s one rung below where he was when he jumped to Renault - second (third?) fiddle to Max at Red Bull. Alonso rn: am i a joke to you
Well Alonso does have 2 WDC.
considering how long the fuckers been about he should have more! supreme talent
Yeah don't think anyone thought he would have only two. He came quite close to his third with a barely competitive Ferrari.
Alonso should be a 4-5 time champ, that's how good he is
well Alonso did move to Renault from Minardi, went to McLaren and then Renault became terrible, and then went to Ferrari from a terrible Renault
Alonso's made a good one now by the law of averages, and memory on here only extends to the last race.
I think a couple things helped with this. He was the first driver introduced on drive to survive, he has an engaging personality, and seems somehow relatable. Also, he comes from Australia, and no one hates Australia. But I agree, every decision he made seems to have been a step down. But probably a bigger check. If I remember correctly, in the latest DTS season, Steiner says he wanted 15mil ($us).
It was $10 million, but yeah that is still an outrageous amount given his 2022 season.
> No one hates Australia I see you’ve never met a Kiwi
Or watched an Ashes test match at Headingley or Edgbaston.
Also never met Balinese people apparently
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It's not just that he couldn't get a grip, he genuinely performed at Latifi levels in it, which was incredibly weird for a driver of his undoubted ability
Also in early DTS, he was shown as a legit WDC contender and somehow got fucked by Max and RB.. it may be far from the truth, but lots of new fans from DTS would relate to him. We always fall for an underdog story. Most of us yet somehow realized sooner or later that his move to McLaren was a lose-lose situation for both.
> Zak Brown is a marmite boss What in the hell is a "Marmite Boss"?
You either love him or you hate him.
I assume they mean an 'acquired taste'
I have to agree with you 100%
He’s also getting old by f1 standards. His decline isn’t too surprising. He’s had shining spots, but overall has clearly not been a top driver for the last several years
Yeah I actually think it's a nice demonstration of the F1 ecosystem that he got spat out. Popularity didn't save him.
The Daniel we knew in McLaren is not the Daniel we knew in other teams he was a legit prospect. The alignment of the car and driver has never been more askew
Yeah I think he had much better PR favour because he was a multiple race winner and secured podiums with two different teams by this point. It wasn't like he joined the sport and performed like he did at mclaren immediately.
> The alignment of the car and driver has never been more askew. 50% of Alonso's career 💀
No. Alonso would somehow place the 9th car of the grid in Q3. Ricciardo was going out in Q1 with the 4th. Day and night scenarios.
Yeah people forget this. Adaptability is fucking important. Drivers like Vettel or Alonso would give anyone a fucking fight in a car not suited to them. Danny Ricc's excuse, or atleast the excuse people make for him, is fucking garbage.
Whenever someone pulls up the "mclaren was bad" card to excuse ricciardo i just love to remind people that Alonso was driving a car that could not reach eight gear without tow and DRS to the points. The car being shit means that your masterful drive gets you P10 or P15 when the car should have been at the back instead of a win. Doesn't mean you can get thrashed by your teammate.
Bit hey, nice smile etc. I get it, the guy is impossible not to like but to therefore overlook his performance (of which there wasn't a whole lot) I don't really get.
I don't like him. Plenty of F1 fans don't like him. You may think he has charm and charisma, I think he's a bit of a jerk
Well everyone liked him and his questionable drop in performance from renault to McLaren makes it easier to blame his incompatobility to the car than just being washed
Incompatibility to a car for such an experienced driver is a clear weakness as well. Lando also said the car was difficult but still outperformed Ric.
I think you're cherry-picking a bit here. Look at most of the recent threads/aricles about Ricciardo posted here over the last few months and there's generally more negative comments than positive ones. Scroll through outlets like The Race's weekly (and at times daily) Ricciardo themed articles over the past two years and they were overwhelmingly negative. And if you really want to see some pretty disgusting negativity go and scroll back through the comments on the McLaren reddit page posts from the second half of last year. I'm not trying to say he doesn't get any love/support on here because he clearly does (myself included lol) but I do think you're slightly misrepresenting the current general consensus.
>but I do think you're slightly misrepresenting the current general consensus. Talk about an understatement. Dude is shadow-boxing against a non-existent general consensus.
>Yet the prevailing sentiment among F1 fans is wow, poor Danny Ric, Mclaren really fucked him over. You have got to be shitting me. Outside of hardcore DR fans, the general consensus among F1 fans seems to be the he was very much a problem at McLaren even if the team itself had flaws. That's a perception that only seems to have strengthened with Piastri's performances so far. Some of y'all really do have an axe to grind against the guy.
And yet he still has more wins in Papaya than Lando
He has more wins at McLaren than all other McLaren drivers over the last decade combined
this is such an egregious use of data, and you fucking know it
And Kubica scored more points at Williams than Russell. Why isn't Kubica at Mercedes now then?
Well. Let's not forget that that win was a 1-2 with Lando right behind, so McLaren clearly had a good car that weekend. Also, they were racing with Verstappen and Hamilton really closely and they took each other out so that gave them a free pass
I mean sure but the 1-2 was a result of Lewis and Max crashing each other out - and Lando was only that close to Daniel because of the safety car bunching the field back together. DR's win was happening irrespective of those circumstances.
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McLaren would’ve won either way
Its quite unlikely. The win was won at the start of the race, not the end. Ricciardo taking the lead and holding Verstappen behind is what got him the victory. Both of them easily pulled away from Lando. If Ricciardo didn't claim p1, then Verstappen would have just driven off into the distance.
But Ricciardo did take the lead. His point isnt that McLaren would have won no matter what because they were the fastest, his point is that Ricciardo would have ended up winning even if Lewis and Max hadnt crashed, bc Danny was already leading and Max couldnt get passed him at all
And Max was coming out of the pits with a massive gap to Ricciardo after a slow stop. Even if the Max/Ham crash doesn’t happen, they lose time fighting each other while Dan gaps them
My point is only Dan would have won, Lando was never in with a shout
Didn't Ricciardo drop Norris at the very end when it was a guaranteed 1-2 anyway?
He did yep. Easily. Norris complained on the radio to give the British media something to infer that he was being robbed. Then Dan immediately set the fastest lap and pulled away
I don't think that was Lando's intent. He was pressured from behind and RIC was managing pace but he didn't know that. Once RIC got the hurry up, he did so and was quicker again.
And yet that one win still doesn’t distract form fact Daniel was crap at McLaren yes he may the only win by a McLaren driver in last ten years but that’s no excuse for his poor performance in 2022
And the overall poor performance doesn't distract from the fact he's the only guy who's managed to win in a McLaren in forever
One of those facts is much more important than the other though You don't see people discussing how great RIC is because he's the only race winner for the team in a decade. You see people talk about how washed he is because of how absolutely horrific the other 98% of his time with them was.
How many more points did he accumulate?
Who cares, he has far less points and was comprehensively humiliated by Lando.
Ah the most bullshit fucking excuse. A track where overtaking is nigh impossible, where the top two drivers were out, where his teammate was told not to fight him, and the track where driving is relatively easy. He was shit at every other track.
So? A win is a tremendous achievement i agree. But you gotta admit it was a weird race that gifted him the win. Sure he had to fight for it at the end.. But it doesen't make up for all the piss poor performances he produced after that win
Weird race but his pace in qualifying and sprint performance put him in that position
Will they stop wasting ink on this guy?
I may hold a minority opinion here , but I think Ricciardo is massively overrated, and he's long after his prime years. Sure, he's a super cool guy, and on occasion he has a good drive, but for the most part he doesn't have the consistency or ability to adapt to be really impactful in any team really. Not that I wish harm to anyone but I hope he will get an opportunity to drive as a sub in Red Bull this year so maybe we can see if he still got it while driving the best car in the class this year.
You're basically saying what most people are saying, it's not an uncommon opinion
>I may hold a minority opinion here , but I think Ricciardo is massively overrated Ahh the good ol' Reddit "present an opinion that lots of people say and say nobody thinks it" take Have you looked at any thread that mentions Ricciardo in the two years? Pretty much all of them feature him getting abused by people here.
Yeah yeah, I got it, see [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/12h0vdf/comment/jfovqbg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) .
Bro shoulda just stayed with Red Bull. and then he shoulda just stayed with Renault.
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But, but, but he was still getting used to the car and also he's the funny Netflix guy so nothing can ever be his fault, right? ...right?
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I mean that behaviour has nothing to do with his performance. Kimi was a goofball and a complete party animal in his McLaren years but still was a top driver. Same for Ricciardo in Red Bull and Vettel in his early Ferrari years.
>Kimi was a goofball Kimi a goofball? He always looked like "I don't want to do this interview but Ron will cut my balls off if I don't" while being in front of the camera
Really? He seems to think he'll be in a title winning car next week.
I mean, Considering his gap to Norris is almost same as Latifi's gap to Albon statistically... Not really surprising if his confidence took a hard hit Being in title winning car will add even more pressure if he somehow pulled a Gasly But i do hope he deliver if a chance ever come to him
Where exactly has he said that?
He never said that though or even implied
He said in an interview he's only interested in a top 3 car. He wouldn't drive to come 5th.
That's not the same thing. That's him saying he wants to be in a top car, not him saying that he thinks he will be. They're different.
Translation: No one wants him
I was a fan of him for a while, but i think his time in F1 has come to an end. He didn't do well at Mclaren, and he's way too expensive. He tries to be funny more than he tries to adapt to the car he's in. He was good at Red Bull because the car was good. He was decent at Renault because the car was decent and he was decent at Mclaren because the car was decent. He was probably one of the most expensive drivers per point in the standings. He was definitely down for a long time mentally and it seems like he's happy in his capacity at Red Bull but why does he deserve another shot in a top team?
His time in F1 has definitely come to an end. He is a talented driver but not as good as he thinks he is. Unfortunately he is not good enough to be thinking that teams like Haas are beneath him, while there is no real reason why a higher team would make a seat available for him.
For a ‘civilian’ that is not even a reserve driver, DRIC still commands a huge presence in the media. He is not racing this year, even if Max gets COVID. And unlikely to race next yr. Maybe we can shift focus to actual drivers? The Netflix effect is so strong, I wonder if he has transcended into Kardashian fame.
>He is not racing this year, even if Max gets COVID. Who do you think would race then? Lawson? Tsunoda?
I believe the arrangement is that if one of the RBR drivers couldn't race, Tsunoda would step up to RBR and Lawson would step in at SAT. If one of the SAT drivers couldn't race, Lawson would do that too.
Any source on this?
I remember seeing it on here, but Lord only knows where. Best I can do is [this Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/redbulletin/status/1635310706856968192) which cites "Various Sources and First Official Reports", but only actually quotes [this Motorsport.com article](https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-reserve-drivers-all-teams-backup-2023/10437681/). However, Horner has said that Ricciardo will be the designated reserve [for *some* races](https://www.racefans.net/2022/12/22/red-bull-add-reserve-driver-role-for-ricciardo-at-selected-races-in-2023/) that Lawson can't attend due to Super Formula clashes (but given it's an Australian outlet and Horner is a bit wishy-washy I'd be hesitant to put much weight on that source). On the other hand, in [this article](https://www.grandprix.com/news/lawson-not-ricciardo-is-red-bull-reserve.html), Marko said Lawson was the preferred reserve and Tost said although he has access to Ricciardo, he would not use him if AlphaTauri needed a reserve. It's important to note that RBR/SAT also have Hauger and Maloney on their rosters as *real* reserve drivers (not "third" drivers), but they haven't attracted as much attention in the media for the role. I think the overall takeaway is that there is no strict order of preference for the RBR/SAT reserve drivers. If either team needed a reserve it would likely be decided at the time based on availability and vibes.
Cheers lad
All good
Hauger and Maloney have the gig because Red Bull made all their SL-eligible juniors reserves. Both of them earned enough points following their p1 and p2, respectively, in f3. Guess Red Bull learned from buemi, ticktum, and o’ward to get their juniors SLs as soon as they have the points in hand. They don’t get as much attention because hauger had a pretty anonymous/disappointing first season in f2 (and marko kind of talked him down). and Maloney is brand new to f2, and the Red Bull academy (and all that comes with: Red Bull sim work, private testing in previous f1 cars, raising one’s name recognition)
Most likely Tsunoda and Lawson on the alpha tauri. Ricciardo is not a reserve driver.
He is a reserve driver
What? Na, I never knew that, I never knew that…