Rumour mill hots up in Baku that Daniel Ricciardo’s F1 days are numbered

More hints were dropped in Baku that Daniel Ricciardo could lose his F1 seat for 2025.

Only two vacant cars remain before the 2025 F1 driver line-up is confirmed.

Ricciardo’s seat at RB, and one Sauber drive, are the only decisions that must be finalised.

At the F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where Ricciardo again suffered disappointment, whispers spread that Red Bull are teeing up a replacement for their sister team next season.

“Very disappointing day for them. A miserable day, actually,” reported Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz after the race.

“Ricciardo was clearly up for it, on the grid. Only P13.

“Ricciardo raced Pierre Gasly but couldn’t finish ahead of him him, even when Gasly stopped on the last lap to take his mandatory tyre stop. As Gasly pitted under the Virtual Safety Car, they ended up 29 seconds behind. Not their day.

“Helmut Marko says it will be after Singapore - we have been waiting to hear who will be Yuki Tsunoda’s partner at RB next year.

“Marko is teasing that it’s now after Singapore that we will hear whether it’s going to be Ricciardo or Lawson.

“We think it’s going to be Liam Lawson.”

Lawson deputised for Ricciardo when he was injured last season, and impressed driving for AlphaTauri.

But Ricciardo was still given the nod by Red Bull to stay with their sister team, and might have even replaced Sergio Perez if the cookie had crumbled differently.

Instead, Red Bull reaffirmed faith in Perez and now Ricciardo’s spot in his existing team is under severe threat.

Ricciardo's drab race in Baku

Ricciardo said in Baku: “It was a tough race. The start felt okay; the medium runners in front of me looked like they were struggling, and we were able to catch them.

“I was on the hard tyre and tried to use it where I could by going long and finding the pace.

“After a few laps, we picked up a lot of graining, which got worse and worse over 10 laps, causing us to be a few seconds off the pace. The team could see some other cars were clearing the graining, however it definitely took us a lot longer.

“When we did, we were able to come back and have a bit of pace again, but we had lost a lot of ground. I’ve never experienced graining like that, the swing of lap time was up to four seconds.

“We need to understand why we had more graining for longer. Looking ahead, I love the Marina Bay Street Circuit, so hopefully we can have a stronger weekend there.”

Tsunoda retired after a first-lap collision with Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin.

Team principal Laurent Mekies said: “This wasn’t the weekend we were hoping for.

“Yuki was unlucky to be involved in a collision on the first lap, while Daniel’s pace was badly affected by a huge amount of tyre graining, which kept him outside of the battle for the points.

“It’s something that is extremely unusual and we will need to get to the bottom of it and understand why it affected us so much more than our competitors.

“In terms of overall performance during the weekend, no doubt that we still have a lot of work to do in front of us. The updates we brought here gave us an improvement in performance which is good news.

“However, it is not enough to match the progress our competitors have made and get back into the top 10 fight.

“Everyone in Faenza and Bicester are working hard to improve in every single area and to introduce more developments soon. Let’s see if we can do better starting on the streets of Singapore in a few days’ time.”