Daniel Ricciardo’s ‘kick arse’ strategy as ‘something bigger’ hint dropped amid Red Bull rumours

RB’s Daniel Ricciardo arrives.

Sensing the opportunity to retain his VCARB seat or perhaps land “something bigger”, Daniel Ricciardo said he needs to “kick some arse” ahead of the F1 2024 summer break.

Red Bull senior advisor Helmut Marko has suggested that the team will make decisions on their driver line-ups over that August break, as Ricciardo battles to keep his seat with junior team VCARB. But a return to Red Bull has seemingly become a possibility once more.

Daniel Ricciardo knows crucial two-race spell ahead

Signing a new multi-year Red Bull deal has not allowed Sergio Perez to escape a further alarming slump in form, leading to fresh speculation over his Red Bull future, including the possibility of changes being made over the summer break.

PlanetF1.com understands that a clause exists in Perez’s contract which would allow Red Bull to make such a move, reportedly dependent on him being 100 points behind team-mate Max Verstappen in the standings. With the Hungarian and Belgian GPs to go, the gap is 137. Marko, without offering any specifics, stated that performance clauses exist for most top drivers.

And the situation is not lost on Ricciardo. While first he needs to ensure a spot on the F1 grid, having so far lost out to team-mate Yuki Tsunoda in the F1 2024 race and qualifying head to heads, he knows “something bigger” could come from delivering a pair of stellar performances over the next two rounds.

“I am aware that these two weekends are probably the most important of the season,” Ricciardo told RacingNews365.

“If you head into the break with some good momentum and positivity it can help, but whether that means retaining my seat here or maybe something bigger, who knows?

“Even if I am not stoked so far on my season as a whole, I can’t look back now. That is done.

“I have two races to kick some arse and that is where my energy is right now.

“And if I do what I know I can, then maybe good things will happen.”

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As for Perez, his “main priority” is to return to his regular podium-scoring form of earlier in the season, having not featured in the top three since April’s Chinese Grand Prix.

Asked by media in Hungary how he is dealing with all the rumours and what Red Bull have told him about their expectations, Perez replied: “Nothing new. It’s another two races for us that we want to get back to our platform. That’s a main priority for me and for the team.

“I was back in the factory over the week and there is the main priority for us really to get back to the form we had a couple of races ago. That’s really it.”

And while Perez admits “it’s difficult to shut down the external noise”, he also said it is part of the reason why “I love this” challenge at Red Bull.

“It’s difficult to shut down the external noise,” said Perez, “but at the end of the day, I come here to give my very best, my maximum effort.

“When I’m here, when I’m at home training, when I’m with the team in the simulator. I focus on the important stuff.

“At the end of the day, the noise, I think it’s obviously a lot bigger when you are at Red Bull. But I think it’s the beauty of this challenge. It’s why I love this. It’s why I decided to sign and extend my contract with the team because I love the challenge.

“It’s really hard, but it takes absolutely everything out of you and this is why I want to continue too.”

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