Ricciardo may have surgery to fix “clean break” as potential return date set

The Australian has been ruled out of this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix after breaking his hand in a crash in Friday practice at Zandvoort, and will be replaced by Red Bull junior Liam Lawson. 

Providing an update after final practice on Saturday, Horner confirmed that Ricciardo is in Barcelona, where he is understood to be receiving treatment from esteemed MotoGP doctor Xavier Mir. 

“Well these guys, you see it in MotoGP, they bounce back pretty quick,” Horner told Sky F1. 

“He’s headed off today to Barcelona. They may even have a little operation on him tomorrow to just tidy up where that break is. It’s quite a clean break 

“Then of course it’s all about the recuperation and how long that takes. Any normal human being would probably be 10 to 12 weeks but we know these guys aren’t normal. 

“It will all be about the recovery process, how long will that take? Is it going to be three weeks? A month? Is it six weeks? Nobody really knows.”

Horner also identified the Singapore Grand Prix - on September 15 - as a potential return date for Ricciardo, though he conceded “nature will take its course”. 

“That was the thing he was most frustrated about talking with him last night,” Horner added. 

“He’s just taken a bunch of time off, just got his mojo back, back into it, now he’s on the bench again. That was his frustration. 

“They’ve [Alpha Tauri] started to make some progress. A shame for him but I am sure that at the back of his mind he has got Singapore as a target. 

“But then again Singapore is probably one of the toughest circuits on the calendar. Nature will take its course.”