Rumors Swirl in Baku: Daniel Ricciardo’s Future at Red Bull in Jeopardy as Decision Deadline Looms

Speculation intensifies in Baku about the potential end of Daniel Ricciardo’s F1 career

RB faces a critical deadline to decide on driver lineup

Further indications emerged in Baku suggesting that Daniel Ricciardo might be at risk of losing his Formula 1 seat for the 2025 season.

Just two open spots are left before the 2025 F1 driver roster is finalized.

The only remaining decisions to be made are who will take Ricciardo's position at Red Bull and who will secure a seat with Sauber.

During the F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where Ricciardo faced another letdown, rumors emerged that Red Bull is preparing a substitute for their affiliated team for the upcoming season.

“It was an extremely disheartening day for the team. In fact, it was downright terrible,” said Ted Kravitz from Sky Sports after the race.

“Ricciardo was visibly enthusiastic on the starting grid, despite being in 13th position.”

Daniel Ricciardo competed against Pierre Gasly but failed to overtake him, even though Gasly made a mandatory pit stop on the final lap. When Gasly pitted during the Virtual Safety Car period, they found themselves 29 seconds behind. It just wasn’t their day.

Helmut Marko mentioned that the announcement regarding Yuki Tsunoda’s teammate at Red Bull for next year will be made after the Singapore race.

"Marko is hinting that the decision between Ricciardo and Lawson will be announced after the Singapore event."

“We believe Liam Lawson will be the one.”

Last season, Lawson stepped in for Ricciardo during his injury and performed admirably for AlphaTauri.

However, Ricciardo was still granted approval by Red Bull to remain with their affiliated team and could have potentially taken Sergio Perez's spot if circumstances had been different.

Red Bull has chosen to continue supporting Perez, which now puts Ricciardo's position in his current team in jeopardy.

Ricciardo's Lackluster Performance in Baku

During the Baku race, Ricciardo commented, "It was a challenging race. The beginning seemed alright; the drivers on medium tires ahead of me appeared to be having difficulties, and we managed to close the gap on them."

"I was using the hard tire and attempted to maximize its performance by extending my stint and finding a good rhythm."

"After completing a few laps, we experienced significant tire graining that progressively worsened over the next 10 laps, resulting in us being a few seconds slower than the optimal pace. While the team observed that some other vehicles managed to clear the graining more quickly, it took us considerably more time to do so."

"When we managed to, we regained some speed, but we had already fallen far behind. I’ve never encountered graining like that before; the variation in lap times reached up to four seconds."

“We need to figure out why the tires degraded more and for an extended period. Looking forward, I really enjoy the Marina Bay Street Circuit, so I’m hopeful we can perform better there.”

Tsunoda withdrew from the race following a collision with Lance Stroll's Aston Martin on the first lap.

Team leader Laurent Mekies commented, "This was not the kind of weekend we anticipated."

“Yuki had the misfortune of getting into a crash during the opening lap, and Daniel struggled with severe tyre graining that significantly slowed him down, preventing him from competing for points.”

"This situation is highly unusual, and we must investigate thoroughly to determine why it had a significantly greater impact on us compared to our competitors."

"Regarding our overall performance over the weekend, it's clear that there's still a significant amount of work ahead. The updates we introduced here have led to a performance boost, which is encouraging."

"Nonetheless, equaling the advancements of our rivals is insufficient to re-enter the competition for the top 10."

"All teams in Faenza and Bicester are putting in great effort to enhance every aspect and to bring new advancements shortly. We’ll find out if we can perform better when we hit the streets of Singapore in a few days."

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