NOTTINGHAM: Daniel Ricciardo will be racing in the Hungarian Grand Prix on July 23 for AlphaTauri. Ricciardo revealed that Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko played an influential role in bringing him back to Formula 1.
According to the Formula 1 website, “Daniel revealed how that opportunity arrived via the latest famed call from Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko. I was like, ‘OK, let’s just hear what he has to say. I think that’s probably the best thing because sometimes you’re trying to prepare yourself, ‘What if he asks for this?’ So I thought, ‘Let’s just hear him out and see what happens.”
He added, “I didn’t really need to think much about it. I think, as well, being back in this family, I feel so much, I would say there’s certainly some familiarity, but I also feel at home, I feel like I’m kind of just going through it all again. These were the calls I used to get and these were the moments they used to kind of throw in front of us. There was no question that I was going to say yes, it was just I guess the reality of, OK, it’s going to happen pretty soon.”
With some of his confidence and belief “diminishing” during a tricky two-year period at McLaren, Ricciardo asserted that he feels back to his normal self after reuniting with Red Bull and spending time with some familiar faces.
“Getting back to Red Bull and just kind of the reception I had walking back into that team was really kind of, in a positive way, a little bit overwhelming. Then getting back on the sim, I was still a bit unsure how it was going to go, if the car would feel like it used to, if I was going to be, for the lack of better words, like the old me.
“Once I’d done a few sim sessions and started feeling like myself again, it then just kind of brought me back to normal Daniel, where I was falling back in love and ready to go again.”
Ricciardo then took a moment to discuss his expectations alongside Yuki Tsunoda at AlphaTauri, who sit at the foot of the F1 standings with just two points to their name so far this season.
“The car will be what it is,” said Ricciardo before heading to Hungary, where he won for Red Bull in 2014. “I’m going to drive it and work from there. I don’t want to get too much-preconceived ideas.
Ricciardo also knows that should he deliver with AlphaTauri, there may well be a route back to Red Bull in the future though he is focused on the here and now.
While concluding he said, That’s why it feels a bit like back when I was working my way up through it, in the Red Bull family. That was it, ‘If you get results, we’ll keep pushing you, we’ll keep pushing you’. That’s really like the mindset. I know the team It’s been tough to get a points finish this year, a top 10, so to push this car and try to get it inside the top 10, I think that would get everyone pretty fulfilled and excited.” (ANI)