The five challenges between Ricciardo and Perez's Red Bull F1 seat

Christian Klien, Scott Speed, Sebastien Bourdais, Daniil Kvyat, Pierre Gasly. And now, Nyck de Vries. All six have felt the famously brutal Helmut Marko-wielded axe swing on their Red Bull-contracted Formula 1 seats mid-season.

These changes have been made in addition to the ruthless season-ending jettisoning of talents such as Sebastian Buemi and Jean-Eric Vergne. A move before the season is over – in de Vries’s case even before the 2023 summer break – is something else. 

Enter Daniel Ricciardo, back at the AlphaTauri squad he last raced for as Toro Rosso in 2013, ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix. Red Bull’s prodigal son returns, so the lazy comparison goes. He’s certainly back on the path to the seat he vacated in 2018 that kicked off the second act of Marko signing savagery, but there’s plenty more at play than simply the Australian wanting to make amends for that decision.

Everything does, however, start with de Vries’s shockingly short F1 career. It’s not necessarily over for the Dutchman, but the fact that no F1 squad had interest after he clinched the 2019 Formula 2 title says a lot, even if that was before he impressed in becoming Formula E’s first world champion and in his World Endurance Championship races. That his brilliant performance in replacing the appendicitis-addled Alex Albon for Williams at last year’s 2022 Italian GP apparently led to Marko deciding there and then to sign him to replace Gasly at AlphaTauri is also an important factor in deciphering why the Austrian 1971 Le Mans winner has been so similarly quick-minded in dropping de Vries now. 

PLUS: How de Vries' overdue F1 debut proved him worthy of a 2023 drive

De Vries’s 2023 season got off to an underwhelming start with a failure to escape Q1 in three of his first six GP attempts. And then there were the crashes. He was very unlucky to be taken out by Logan Sargeant in the farcical late restart in Melbourne, but then he clashed with team-mate Yuki Tsunoda in the Baku sprint and crashed out of the main race, having also shunted in Friday qualifying.

Then there was a Sargeant-esque rear-of-the-pack start shunt, admittedly with smaller consequences, into Lando Norris in Miami. In Spain, his qualifying spins and radio “what am I doing wrong there?” plea betrayed a driver who was struggling. By early May, rumours of Marko’s dissatisfaction were spiralling. 

An eventful weekend for de Vries in Baku and lack of standout moments caused Marko's patience to wear thin

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Alongside all this, Ricciardo was impressing Red Bull, having rejoined as a sometime simulator and reserve driver for this year. This also meant he needed a seat made at AlphaTauri in mid-May, which added much fuel to the blazing speculative fire considering de Vries’s F1 future. 

Rolled out in his additional duty as ever-smiling PR darling, Ricciardo said at the RB19 livery launch that his attitude was: “If I’m not racing F1 then I really just do want to give myself that break.” That meant an extended period staying with family and friends riding dirt bikes in Australia over the northern hemisphere winter, then indulging in his interests away from F1. Ricciardo also embraced his spot on the sidelines, signing up to commentate in a telecast production with actor and F1 fan Will Arnett for ESPN for the Canadian GP (his further two appearances for Austin and Las Vegas have obviously been canned). 

At the same New York event back in February, where Red Bull announced Ford as its 2026 engine partner, Ricciardo also said: “I’m definitely more looking towards figuring out how everything goes this year and see what’s up for 2024, and really for now I’m kind of like ‘F1 or nothing’.”

A new identity is coming for 2024, but it is thought likely that the name change will be tied to a new title sponsor deal. Having Ricciardo, a far more recognisable star than de Vries or Tsunoda, on board would be a big help in cashing in on such a change

This meant that, alongside finding his mental break from the stresses of underperforming at McLaren (other than winning at Monza in 2021), Ricciardo would have to do well in his non-racing Red Bull roles. Team principal Christian Horner said at April’s Australian GP – the first time Ricciardo had returned to the paddock since departing McLaren – that he was “getting his mojo back”. Then, more recently in Austria, Horner added that Ricciardo was “now extremely competitive in what he’s doing in the virtual world”. 

But there was a bigger picture overhanging all of this, which concerned AlphaTauri. Back in pre-season testing, respected German publication Auto Motor und Sport reported that the larger Red Bull empire was considering selling its smaller F1 team. This was dismissed initially as “rumours” by Marko, although an evaluation process did then take place. The team is now set for a second rebrand in five years for 2024, following its rebirth as Toro Rosso in the ashes of Minardi in 2006 and becoming an (unsuccessful) vehicle to promote Red Bull’s in-house fashion label for 2020. 

The thrust behind the potential and actual AlphaTauri changes – which now include the departure of team boss Franz Tost, who firmly believes a driver should be given three years to demonstrate their F1 capabilities – stemmed from the recent wider Red Bull management reshuffle. This followed the demise of company co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz last October, with Oliver Mintzlaff, the former CEO of Red Bull’s Leipzig football team, brought on board effectively as Red Bull’s new marketer-in-chief and therefore responsible for its two F1 teams.  

Marko gave an interview to the Speedweek website in March, which was considered extraordinary given that it is owned by Red Bull, in which he bemoaned “Didi was a visionary… I am not seeing that anymore” in not having a direct line to Mintzlaff after F1 track sessions. The new boss (Mintzlaff is one of three CEO-level directors running Red Bull) has a reputation for not being a passionate F1 fan, but he did at least attend Max Verstappen’s recent victory in the team’s home Austrian GP, where Autosport even spied him helping to repair Sergio Perez’s third-place trophy after it got knocked over as the team’s celebration photograph was organised.  

AlphaTauri has struggled in recent times, and ahead of its rebrand Ricciardo provides an attractive figurehead to lure sponsors

Photo by: Erik Junius

But it’s not hard to interpret the source of the 2023 pressure on AlphaTauri, with Marko acknowledging when the sale story first surfaced that, “if you have a team that wins the world championship and the other one is only around ninth place, the synergies don’t seem to work properly”. 

Ultimately, with Red Bull’s success and sponsor influx – its Oracle title sponsorship deal is thought to be worth $500million – the main team essentially takes care of itself. AlphaTauri is in a more perilous position, having lost around $30m in its plunge from sixth in the 2021 constructors’ table to ninth in 2022.

Change has followed, with long-serving team principal Tost about to exit and be replaced by Peter Bayer (former FIA secretary general for sport) and Laurent Mekies (currently Ferrari’s sporting manager and former Toro Rosso chief engineer), as CEO and team principal respectively. AlphaTauri’s main operations base will continue to be Minardi’s old Faenza facility, but its existing aerodynamics office in Bicester will be expanded so it can benefit more, within F1’s transferable components rules, from the Red Bull “synergies” that Marko and co so often highlight. 

A new identity is coming for 2024, but it is thought likely that the name change will be tied to a new title sponsor deal. Having Ricciardo, a far more recognisable star than de Vries or Tsunoda, on board would be a big help in cashing in on such a change. 

Ricciardo, however, has much bigger aspirations than just tooling around with a team where – alongside Haas and Williams – he made it clear late last year he didn’t want to drive in 2023. Speaking to ESPN in June, Ricciardo admitted “the fairytale ending [is] to finish my career here [at Red Bull]”. He added: “I’ll probably have to work my way up a little bit but it’s really nice to be back here.” 

That work started in Red Bull’s Milton Keynes simulator, but carried on into what can now be viewed as a pivotal Pirelli tyre test at Silverstone following the British GP, where Tsunoda and de Vries had claimed rather anonymous 16th and 17th positions, as the last-running finishers. In Ricciardo’s action at the wheel of the RB19, his first in 2023, Marko saw enough to make his latest massive driver call. 

“Ricciardo’s lap times were competitive during the tyre test, on three different tyre sets,” he told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. “If Ricciardo had not had the speed, we would have needed to consider something else. But AlphaTauri is not in a good position right now and is last in the constructors’ standings, so we had to do something to change that.” 

Of de Vries, Marko explained: “Unfortunately, he didn’t do one super lap that really amazed us.”  

An impressive test for Red Bull helped secure Ricciardo's return to the grid, and he'll now eye Perez's berth

Photo by: Pirelli

So, for Marko, the AlphaTauri issue is ‘solved’ for now. But Red Bull’s driver issues aren’t fully fixed when looking across its two teams. And, again, Ricciardo is an important element in how they might be – as he’s already explained, he’d be a willing problem solver.  

The issue is the main team’s driver points imbalance. Perez has just 61% of Verstappen’s 255-point total and is only 19 points ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, despite having what is by a big margin the best and quickest car on the grid.  

Marko says “Checo is second in the world championship, so it would make no sense at all to get rid of him now”, but that final word ‘now’ is damning. Horner also highlighted Perez’s current place in the standings, but said after Silverstone: “We’ve got a good car but we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got both cars in contention.”

Ricciardo also needs to rehabilitate his image, to banish the memories of his McLaren misery and recapture the stunning overtaking form of old. Given AlphaTauri’s backmarker status, his chances will be few and far between

Red Bull, for all its caution against complacency, knows it’s got both 2023 world titles sewn up. But it fears its cost cap penalty finally biting in terms of car performance against the rest when it comes to 2024’s RB20, and the reduced development time it has to work on that design alongside fettling the RB19 until the end of October. 

PLUS: When is the perfect time for F1 teams to focus on 2024?

If Perez is still unable to get anywhere near Verstappen against proper opposition in the future, Red Bull worries that this will cost it the constructors’ championship. It happened in 2021 against Mercedes. Therefore, if Ricciardo can shine for AlphaTauri, it makes sense to think that Red Bull would be prepared to move him back to the main team and oust Perez. There’s nearly 20 years of evidence in terms of its driver treatment to support this theory.  

Ricciardo’s aim is clear. And Red Bull is clearly happy to let him start down the path he acknowledges he must tread – the same one he did after those exploratory 11 races for HRT in 2011. But if Ricciardo is to get back to where he left in 2018, with a race-winning car at his command, there are five key challenges to surpass.  

First, and most importantly, he has to shine in the AT04. And this is a big problem, because the AlphaTauri has the same braking/corner- entry instability weakness that Ricciardo so struggled with in his two years at McLaren. The rear ride height rises when braking, which sheds downforce. AlphaTauri has kicked off a major redevelopment push, but it has had little impact so far. 

Ricciardo now needs to fare well against Tsunoda and hope Perez continues to struggle to give himself a shot at a Red Bull return

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Ricciardo also needs to rehabilitate his image, to banish the memories of his McLaren misery and recapture the stunning overtaking form of old. Given AlphaTauri’s backmarker status, his chances will be few and far between, but Marko has already suggested “one super lap” is of significance – although you’d imagine that stretches to one super qualifying or race performance for Ricciardo from now on. 

Tsunoda has shown that’s possible on occasion this year. Therefore, beating the Japanese third-year driver in the 2023 points standings is another key Ricciardo aim over the next 12 races they’ll contest together.  

He must also hope that Perez continues his poor form. If the Mexican can match Verstappen over the rest of 2023, then Red Bull’s bigger problem rather goes away. But perhaps the largest barrier to a Red Bull return for Ricciardo is the driver setting the standard for Perez. Why would Verstappen’s team risk upsetting its star, given Ricciardo proved he could operate closer to the Dutchman than any of the three replacements Red Bull has tried in his place in the past five years? 

It seems that Red Bull’s ultimate Ricciardo replacement is… Ricciardo. But that, perhaps, isn’t quite the flawless solution that it appears to be.

Red Bull's ideal replacement for Ricciardo could be Ricciardo himself, but would putting him back into the team go down badly with Verstappen?

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool