The 2024 Singapore GP seemed to be an abrupt and sad end to the F1 career of Daniel Ricciardo — one of the most popular drivers to ever grace the sport. RB replaced him with Liam Lawson after the Australian failed to live up to expectations this season. With his sacking being one of the most widely discussed topics, Guenther Steiner has also given his take on it.
The former Haas team principal recently appeared on ‘The Fast and the Curious’ podcast and explained why Ricciardo suffered from such a downward spiral. Steiner said, “Daniel is very strange. I think it started with his time at McLaren, where he was no longer the old Daniel”.
Team mates, rivals, bosses… friends
The tributes have poured in for Daniel Ricciardo #F1 pic.twitter.com/LZkWjDgtkm
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 28, 2024
Steiner believes Ricciardo was just “lost” during his time at McLaren and mentally he couldn’t cope with it anymore. He further added that it seemed that Ricciardo lost a lot of confidence after losing to Lando Norris at the Woking team. The eight-time race winner perhaps carried over this dip in morale when he returned to F1 with RB in mid-2023.
Steiner further explained how Ricciardo found himself in a very difficult state of mind following his stint with McLaren as he began to “cramp up mentally”. After Steiner made his remarks about Ricciardo, the hosts of the podcast asked him if he knew any other driver who had suffered such a sudden dip in performance.
To their surprise, Steiner said Sergio Perez. Steiner believes that when the Mexican joined Red Bull in 2021, he was still a very strong driver. However, the 59-year-old feels it all went wrong for Perez after he consistently failed to match Max Verstappen during his time with the Milton Keynes-based outfit.
Is Perez at risk of losing his Red Bull seat?
During the same podcast, Steiner explained how Perez almost produced a one-off brilliant performance in Baku this year. It was the same race when Perez was fighting for a potential win, while Verstappen struggled and only managed to finish fifth.
However, it all went wrong for Perez in Baku after he collided with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz on the penultimate lap of the race. Since the #11 driver has struggled to deliver strong performances consistently, experts over the past year and a half have often pointed out that he is at risk of losing his seat if he is not able to recover.
While Red Bull has so far decided to stick with Perez, things could change in the future. There are already widespread rumors that Red Bull will evaluate Ricciardo’s midseason replacement, Lawson, for the rest of the 2024 season and will provide him with the second seat on the main team if he is able to impress.
