Why Red Bull’s two-race deadline could spell good news for Daniel Ricciardo

VCARB’s Daniel Ricciardo.

Ahead of two crucial races, Daniel Ricciardo is seemingly okay with the speculation about his future as he tends to have a “decent weekend” when people talk about him.

Ricciardo is no stranger to criticism, the Honey Badger having dealt with that during his time with McLaren, so today it’s just more of the same.

Daniel Ricciardo finds some ‘good’ in the criticism

Retained by VCARB in the hope that he could put pressure on Sergio Perez for the Red Bull seat, Ricciardo’s run of five races outside of the points at the very beginning of the season put paid to that promotion.

Finding a bit of form with a P4 at the Miami Sprint and following that up with top ten results in the Canadian and Austrian Grands Prix, the headlines did a U-Turn from ‘Daniel Ricciardo to be dropped after the summer break’ to ‘Daniel Ricciardo to replace Sergio Perez after the summer break’.

But as the pendulum swung, a lacklustre showing at the British Grand Prix has led to calls for Red Bull to put reserve driver Liam Lawson in the RB20, boot Perez out of Formula 1, and retain Ricciardo at VCARB but only until the end of the season.

Ricciardo and Perez are facing two crunch races, Hungary and Spa, with Red Bull set to decide not only their 2025 driver line-up during the summer break, but also decide who will be in the cars when F1 returns with the Dutch Grand Prix.

PlanetF1.com understands there are clauses in Perez’s contract that allow Red Bull to make changes if they so wish based on his deficit to Verstappen which cannot be more than 100 points after Spa. Today that’s 137.

Both drivers are set to be the subject of much speculation over the next two weeks, but Ricciardo says bring it on, as it seems to inspire his on-track results.

“Probably the thing I was certainly lacking for most of the season so far, was to string a few decent results together,” he said as per the official F1 website.

“But yeah, I don’t know, it feels like when we have a media briefing and they’re like, ‘Yeah, a few people are saying things about you’, I tend to have a decent weekend!

“Maybe some of it’s good.”

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Ricciardo insists he is making progress with his two top ten results in the last four races. He, however, sits on 11 points compared to his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda’s 20.

“I know what’s required and I’m finally getting a little bit of momentum,” said the 35-year-old. “Probably what I envisioned I should have maybe had all season so far, it was a little bit tougher to get that going.

“But now, try to keep it going. I feel quite good in the car.”

As for what comes next should the eight-time Grand Prix winner lose his VCARB seat, Ricciardo told the media including PlanetF1.com that he “not” looking at other teams.

“Not to be stubborn or arrogant about it, but I’m not looking anywhere else,” he said.

“I said I really do enjoy being back in the [Red Bull] family. I weirdly do enjoy sometimes a little bit of the pokes from Helmut because I think it also could also be a way to get me a little bit fired up and try to get the best out of me.”

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