Ricciardo Pleased with 2024 Turnaround after RB Seat Confirmed for Season

Daniel Ricciardo has been pleased with the turnaround he’s had during his 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship after a strong finish before the summer break.

Ricciardo scored his first points of season at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix, having an excellent race in the Sprint, finishing fourth. Another rough patch followed but since the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix, many feel that Ricciardo has been the better driver at Visa Cash App RB scoring points in Montreal, Austria and Spa. He also had good races in Spain and Hungary, with strategy and ultimately the pace of the car costing him.

Ricciardo spoke to F1TV about his season so far and the upwards trajectory that he is currently on: “I would have loved the whole first half [of the season] to have been strong – it wasn’t the case. I obviously had my struggles in the first kind of half of [this] half, and it was clear I needed to pick it up and find something.

“[When] I look back, since Montreal, the pressure probably started to build, [but] – other than Silverstone, which was a bit of an outlier – I feel like the races have been much more in line with what I’m capable of, and I feel like I’m leaving the weekend feeling much more content, fulfilled.

“It’s important I was able to do that, and [it] leaves me entering the break with much more of a spring in my step. Looking ahead, yeah, [I’m] excited. Excited to get back and get out there in Zandvoort.”

Photo: Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool

Ricciardo is set to stay with RB for the rest of the 2024 season, despite rumours that he may be replacing Sergio Pérez and returning to Oracle Red Bull Racing for the rest of the season but Christian Horner has since confirmed that they’ll be no change in the near future.

With Ricciardo set to stay for the foreseeable future, it once again raises a question about RB’s future aims within Formula 1. Set up as a junior team and formerly known as Toro Ross and later Scuderia AlphaTauri, RB is supposed to be developing young drivers from the Red Bull junior programme, but with Ricciardo in that seat and even his teammate Yuki Tsunoda, that vision may have changed.

Ricciardo believes that RB is no longer just a junior team and they’re now trying to move away from what they’ve been doing since joining the sport.

He said: “Yeah, it does feel different, you know, and I think it’s easy to kind of rebrand it and say we’ve got a new look and with this and that, but your actions have to follow,” Ricciardo explained during the driver press conference ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix.

“And I think, you know, Laurent [Mekies], Peter [Bayer], Alan [Permane], a lot of guys that have come in have done that, you know. It’s not that what was happening in the past with Franz, in that example, wasn’t the right thing, but a change sometimes is good. You bring in new ideas. 

“They’ve all spent time in other teams, organisations. And yeah, it’s just a new way of looking at things. And I think that in itself and their intentions and the way they go about it has made people kind of stand up and say, alright, this isn’t a junior team anymore.”