“Ricciardo doesn’t want to say ‘AlphaTauri’ - it’s probably the slowest car”
The veteran driver will immediately replace Nyck de Vries for AlphaTauri, beginning with next week’s F1 Hungarian Grand Prix.
Ricciardo exclusively told Crash that he would accept an AlphaTauri drive if it led to receiving a shot with Red Bull - but Sky’s pitlane reporter has noticed something worrying.
“That quote from Ricciardo? I thought it was odd,” Kravitz said on the Sky Sports F1 podcast.
“He said ‘I’m stoked to be back on track with the Red Bull family’.
“He can’t even bring himself to say AlphaTauri!
“He doesn’t want to say ‘I am delighted to drive the AlphaTauri’, maybe because it’s not a great car.”
Ricciardo received news of his full-time return while driving the Red Bull at Silverstone for a tyre test, clocking impressive times albeit with faster tyre compounds and in good conditions.
“It’s all well and good basing it on the Red Bull RB19,” Kravitz said.
“Which is the class of the field. But he’s not driving that car.
“He’s driving probably one of the slowest cars on the grid! If not the slowest! Which is the AlphaTauri.
“The AlphaTauri had some upgrades at Silverstone and they finished further down than they normally do with a non-upgraded car. This is not a great AlphaTauri, it’s fair to say.
“Not to say that they shouldn’t have replaced Nyck de Vries. Clearly it wasn’t working.
“But the surprise is why Daniel Ricciardo would want to go in to that car. A car that is worse than the McLaren he left last year!
“Maybe there’s some longer-term gain in it for Ricciardo. Because there might well be some short-term pain if he can’t do any better than De Vries.”
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
