After spending 8 months on the sidelines, Daniel Ricciardo finally jumped back into an F1 seat with AlphaTauri at the 2023 Hungarian GP. However, just 2 races into his second coming, the Australian had a horror crash during the FP2 session at the Dutch GP, leaving him with a broken wrist and back on the bench. After almost two months out, Ricciardo made a disappointing return at the US GP last weekend. But the honey badger doesn’t want to make excuses, given his recent injury, for his bad performances, per Formula Passion.
Ricciardo never looked comfortable, strapped into the AT04 at the very technical Circuit of the Americas. Resultantly, he struggled for pace throughout the sessions which culminated in a largely dismal result on track.
While his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda once again clambered the sluggish AlphaTauri into the points, Ricciardo finished plum last. Tsunoda, who finished 8th after Hamilton and Leclerc’s disqualifications, secured 5 points to move within two points of Haas. However, the team couldn’t jump to 9th in the table given Ricciardo’s pointless race.
Be that as it may, the 34-year-old has refused to hide behind his injury to cover up for a disastrous return. “I just lack a little strength in my wrist. Even though the rest is fine, I lacked a bit of strength in that, so at the end of the race I was a bit more tired. But I didn’t have cramps and I didn’t stop,” explained Ricciardo to the media (as quoted by Formula Passion). However, he was quick to clarify that “There were no excuses last weekend, but before this weekend it’s not even a problem anymore,” as he looks to embrace the 2023 Mexico City GP.
Despite injury-riddled setback, Daniel Ricciardo looks to dethrone Sergio Perez at Red Bull
The entire exercise of putting Ricciardo in the sister-Red Bull car for 2023 was with the outlook to gauge him as a replacement for Sergio Perez. And that agenda hasn’t changed as far as the Bulls are concerned.
That being said, if Ricciardo wants to jump back into that second Red Bull seat, he will have to impress the higher ups at the Milton-Keynes-based team. Tsunoda will be the benchmark, and if he can consistently outperform the Japanese driver, he would have forced the Bulls’ hands into making that switch at the main team.
But Ricciardo isn’t the only man in the running for a Red Bull seat. His teammate, Tsunoda, his replacement, Liam Lawson and his ex-teammate, Lando Norris are all candidates to replace Sergio Perez.
