Marko pushed for RB to drop Ricciardo after Spanish Grand Prix – Horner

Daniel Ricciardo nearly lost his seat at Red Bull’s second Formula 1 team much earlier in the season, Christian Horner has revealed.

The Red Bull team principal said their motorsport consultant Helmut Marko lobbied for RB to replace Ricciardo after the Spanish Grand Prix in June.

RB confirmed last week Ricciardo will not return to drive for them in the final six rounds of the season. Liam Lawson has taken his place.

Horner said Ricciardo has shown flashes of potential since returning to F1 at RB last year, but suffered a lack of consistency.

“He started the season roughly,” Horner told the official F1 channel. “Miami was a weekend of two halves, the Friday and Saturday morning was fantastic, and it looked like the Daniel of old defending against Ferraris and out-driving the car. But then the Saturday afternoon and Sunday were disastrous.

“Even around Barcelona, Helmut wanted him out of the car, and there was already a lot of pressure on him there. But by the time we got to Montreal, it was actually dear old Jacques Villeneuve got him properly wound up, giving him a hard time. And it definitely fired him up because the way he drove the car that weekend, he grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and put together a very strong race weekend.

“So I said give Jacques a call every grand prix for the rest of the year, because whatever he said, it definitely worked.”

Red Bull originally brought Ricciardo back to F1 as a potential future replacement for Sergio Perez at their top team. Despite Perez’s persistent underperformance this year, which has seen Red Bull lose its lead in the constructors’ championship to McLaren, Ricciardo hasn’t proved up to scratch, said Horner.

“I’ve done my very best to buy as much time in the car to allow him to deliver,” he said. “Otherwise he would have been out of the car after Barcelona.

“All the drivers are under pressure to deliver. But the reason that Daniel was in that car was to get himself back into a position to ultimately be there to pick up the pieces if Checo didn’t deliver. And the problem was they both had issues with form at varying times.

“Checo started the season very well, very strongly, and Daniel was struggling. And then obviously as Checo lost form, Daniel found a bit of form, but it was never compelling enough to say, ‘okay, we should switch the two drivers’.”

Horner confirmed Lawson’s promotion to RB had been done with a view to him potentially joining Red Bull in the future. “This goes beyond [RB], it encompasses Red Bull Racing,” he said.

“Obviously we’ve got a contract with Sergio for next year but you’ve always got to have an eye out in terms of what comes next. Is that going to be Liam or do we need to look outside the pool or will one of the other juniors step up in the fullness of time whether it’s Isack Hadjar or Arvid Lindblad.”

However he admitted he hopes that next year “Checo finds his form and rediscovers the shape that he was in at the beginning of the year and nothing, nothing changes.

“But as we know in this business, two weeks is long-term.”