“Daniel Ricciardo doesn’t want to say ‘AlphaTauri’ - it’s probably the slowest car,” says Ted Kravitz
The veteran driver𝓡 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 B🉐ull - but Sky’s pitlane reporter has noticed something worrying.
“That quote from Ricciardo? I thought it was odd,” Kravitz said on the✱ .
“He said ‘I’m stoked to be back on track w🐼ith the Red Bull family’.
“He can’t even 𝓡bring himself to say AlphaTauri!
“He doesn’t want to s♐ay ‘I am delighted to drive the AlphaTauri’, maybe because it’s not a great caꦗr.”
Ricciardo received news of his full-time return while driving theꦏ Red Bull at Silverstone for a tyre test, clocking impressive times albeit with faster tyre compounds and in good conditions.
“It’s all well an💫d good basing it on the Red Bull RB19,” Kravitz said.
“Which is the cla🌊ss 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-upgr🌞aded 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 tꦐhan 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.
