Christian Horner denounced Daniel Ricciardo’s RB ambitions with a striking revelation. The Australian driver recently shared his thoughts on RB (formerly AlphaTauri) aiming to move out of Red Bull’s shadows and taking their own route. However, Horner snubbed the claim already with his statement in Netflix’s Drive to Survive’s new season.
Speaking about this, Horner said in Drive to Survive (DTS) Season 6’s episode 2: ‘Fall From Grace’, “AlphaTauri’s [RB] there to train and develop talent for Red Bull Racing. I look at those drivers as, are they candidates for Red Bull Racing at any point in time? If they’re [drivers] not, what’s the point of them being there?”
After Red Bull GmbH bought Jaguar back in 2005 to rebrand it to Red Bull Racing, they always had a team in mind that would play as a backup to the main team. Hence, Dietrich Mateschitz and Co. bought Minardi to rebrand it to Toro Rosso, which over time took the name of AlphaTauri and currently, RB.
For years RB, formerly AlphaTauri or Toro Rosso delivered talented drivers to the Milton-Keynes-based team. From Sebastian Vettel to Max Verstappen, the world champions got through the filters of RB to debut for the main team.
The man from the Land Down Under confidently talked about moving out of Red Bull’s shadow. Just before the start of the 2024 season, he revealed that RB will no longer be a platform for the Austrian team. However, the latest statements by Horner in DTS Season 6 say otherwise. Even Ricciardo, who himself came through this set-up drove for Toro Rosso before making his debut alongside Vettel in 2014.
What’s next for Daniel Ricciardo and RB?
Ahead of the new 2024 season, the Red Bull Racing fraternity decided to rebrand its sister team to Visa Cash App RB. Experts believed this was done to give the team a new identity and move away from Christian Horner’s team’s shadows.
As the transitional phase is still on, they are under an identity crisis for now. The new name received ample criticism both from fans and experts. Several fans also suggested the team to go back to their former Toro Rosso name. However, with the inclusion of Visa and Cash App as the Faenza-based team’s principal sponsors, AlphaTauri could not move that way.
Kicking off the final day of testing with DR3 behind the wheel ✅ pic.twitter.com/tfUnnXzafC
— Visa Cash App RB F1 Team (@visacashapprb) February 23, 2024
The team is known as RB in short and are ready to march out of Red Bull’s shadow, but only just. Ricciardo and Co. back in 2022 moved to use Red Bull’s wind tunnel facilities in Milton Keynes.
Furthermore, there are also rumors that the Faenza-based team are also taking inspiration from the RB19. Hence, for now, this looks like everything but possible. On the other hand, Daniel Ricciardo himself could drive for Red Bull alongside Max Verstappen in the future if he excels at RB, while Sergio Perez loses his footing.
