Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo will make his Formula One comeback less than a year after losing his full-time race seat at McLaren, with the eight-time Grand Prix winner set to race for reigning champions Red Bull’s junior team AlphaTauri in Hungary next weekend.
Australian Formula One star Daniel Ricciardo will return to the top echelon of motorsports at next weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, replacing struggling Dutch rookie Nyck de Vries at the Red Bull-owned AlphaTauri team.
Ricciardo – an eight-time Grand Prix winner – lost his seat at McLaren at the end of 2022 to fellow Australian Oscar Piastri, following two years of lacklustre performance in a car which experts argued did not suit his driving style.
The 34-year-old was subsequently reunited with Red Bull Racing – for which he won seven races between 2014 and 2018 – as a reserve driver, though rumours of his return as a full-time driver started circulating in the Formula One paddock only a handful of races into the 2023 season.
Overnight it was announced Ricciardo will replace Dutch driver Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri – which promotes a clothing brand owned by Red Bull – effective immediately, following a tough start to the year for the rookie driver.
While this year’s AlphaTauri car is regarded as one of the slower cars on this year’s F1 grid, de Vries has scored no points and been outclassed by his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, who finished tenth in the Saudi Arabian and Miami Grands Prix.
The announcement of Ricciardo’s return came as the Australian drove this year’s Red Bull Racing machine for the first time in a tyre test at the Silverstone circuit, which hosted the British Grand Prix four days ago.
Formula One analysts have also speculated Ricciardo’s second stint as a full-time driver could lead to a promotion back to the Red Bull Racing team, as one of its drivers Sergio Perez has slipped further behind championship leader and team-mate Max Verstappen after poor qualifying results in the last five Grands Prix – despite driving the most dominant car in the field.
The 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix will also be the first race in almost ten years with two Australian drivers on the Formula One grid, following the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix which saw both Ricciardo and Mark Webber compete in the season finale.
Australian rookie and McLaren driver Oscar Piastri finished a career-high fourth place in the British Grand Prix – despite a tough start to the year for the team – with a poorly-timed safety car nixing the Melbournian’s chances of a podium.
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