Christian Horner fires warning message to Red Bull star Max Verstappen after axing Daniel Ricciardo… as team principal reveals what cost Australian his place in Formula One
Christian Horner has fired a warning message to Sergio Perez after revealing the reasons behind Daniel Ricciardo’s axing.
Ricciardo said farewell to a ‘wild and wonderful’ 14-year Formula One journey after the popular Australian driver was sacked by Red Bull Racing last week.
The eight-time F1 race winner was let go by his RB team, an outcome which even the 35-year-old himself had been expecting after his disappointing 2024 campaign.
Ricciardo had been racing for sister team RB as a ‘backstop’ for the Mexican at Red Bull and now, following his F1 exit, Horner has sent a warning message to Perez.
Revealing the decision to drop Ricciardo, according to The Times, Horner said: ‘I think it was the lack of consistency.
‘Miami [in early May] was a weekend of two halves. Friday and Saturday morning was fantastic and it looked like the Daniel of old, fighting against Ferraris and out-driving the car. Then the Saturday afternoon and Sunday were disastrous.
‘Even around Barcelona, Helmut [Marko, Red Bull’s motorsport advisor] wanted him out of the car, and there was already a lot of pressure on him there.’
With six races remaining in the 2024 season, RB opted to replace Ricciardo with 22-year-old Liam Lawson.
Lawson, from Hastings in New Zealand, is expected to be given an opportunity to impress RB bosses before they finalise their plans for 2025.
The 22-year-old’s promotion to the second RB seat for the final races of 2024 has provided him with a chance to put his name in the hat to step up to the senior Red Bull team should Pérez continue to struggle
Horner continued: ‘All the drivers are under pressure to deliver but the reason why Daniel was in that car was to get himself back into a position to ultimately be there to pick up the pieces if Checo (Perez) didn’t deliver.
‘The problem was they had issues with form at varying times. Checo started the season very well, very strongly. Daniel was struggling and then as Checo lost form, Daniel found a bit of form but it was never compelling enough to say “OK we should switch the two drivers”.’
‘In a perfect world, that [letting Ricciardo see out the season] would have been what we would have done.
‘But from a broader perspective, we need answers for the bigger picture in terms of drivers. It’s the perfect opportunity to line Liam up alongside Yuki [Tsunoda], to see how he performs over the remaining six grands prix.’
