It appears that Daniel Ricciardo is having trouble settling into the VCARB-01. This is because similar to the first two races, Ricciardo’s weekend at the Australian Grand Prix wasn’t successful. Compared to his younger teammate Yuki Tsunoda, the Honey Badger has continuously posted slower times. This is undoubtedly unsettling news for the Red Bull prospect who returned with the ambitious goal of making a return to the Milton Keynes team. On top of this, Ricciardo’s performance has been severely criticized by Helmut Marko, who has once again raised doubts about his abilities.
According to laola1.at, Marko initially said that Ricciardo’s troubling form is puzzling to the entire squad. However, Marko finds this unexpected because the team saw him perform quite well in the winter test. Nevertheless, based on an analysis of the first three races, Marko asserts that Yuki is faster than Ricciardo.
Considering this, when asked whether this performance means the Japanese driver will be a viable candidate for promotion to the senior at Red Bull team Marko gave an interesting response.
He said, “You would have to have another driver as a comparison. The question is: Has Yuki become a high-flyer or is Daniel [Ricciardo] so weak? There are still no objective answer after three races on three completely different courses.”
So far, where Yuki Tsunoda has bagged 6 valuable points for his team, Daniel Ricciardo’s points tally remains at zero. Unfortunately for Ricciardo, there is no lack of drivers in the F1 market. He, therefore has little chance of establishing his case at Red Bull unless things change significantly.
Yuki Tsnuoda aims to fight Daniel Ricciardo amidst aspiration to get promoted to the senior team
After outclassing Nyck de Vries in AlphaTauri (now RB), Yuki Tsunoda pledged to take down Daniel Ricciardo as well. According to the F1 briefing, when Yuki was asked last year if there would be any rivalry between the two drivers given their goals to be promoted to Red Bull, Tsunoda said that the slower one wouldn’t make it to the senior team. He also added that in F1, only the faster driver has more chance to get promoted.
Later, the Japanese driver also reflected on his view of Ricciardo’s arrival on the team. The 23-year-old sees it as a “challenge” since, in the end, it doesn’t matter if De Vries or Ricciardo is his teammate. Now again, this is because Tsunoda has to do the same thing with every teammate that is to “beat them.”
However, while wrapping up the Japanese driver claimed that it’ll be good for him to beat Ricciardo rather than De Vries. He said, “Nyck came as a rookie and everyone expected me to beat him. That’s the normal thing. [However], Daniel won multiple Grands Prix and has experience already in this year’s car, McLaren. [So], I think it’s good for me if I beat him. “
Although following this comment, he did admit that beating Ricciardo wouldn’t be easy. Moreover, Tsunoda says that once he gets settled in the car, he can perform like his Red Bull days. Therefore, in such cases, the 23-year-old can pick up knowledge from the finest.
