3 reasons why Daniel Ricciardo's return to Red Bull and F1 is still very much a possibility

Daniel Ricciardo's future in Formula 1 seems all but done if we go by what it looks like at this stage. The Australian didn't impress enough for a promotion, and more often than not, Yuki Tsunoda had the edge on him. With that being said, there were races where the Australian put together an impressive race weekend as well.

With that being said, what if we told you that there's definitely a chance that Daniel Ricciardo does end up making a return and could be a Red Bull driver in his next avatar? Let's take a look.

Sergio Perez's form is not improving

There were many theories floating around about Sergio Perez and how he was handicapped by the Red Bull development plan. While that theory could possibly be correct, there's the other glaring side of it. Max Verstappen was dominating the grid in the same car. If your team can dominate the field in the same car and you cannot get anywhere close, that's a problem.

This problem also comes to the surface now because while Sergio Perez was supposed to show improvements after the summer break, they've not really been there. The races in Monza and Baku were the ones where Max struggled, not the case of Perez doing a better job.

As soon as we went to Singapore and Max found his groove, Sergio could not get close. The current performance levels of the Mexican are not sustainable if you want to challenge for the title and a change might just be in order for Red Bull by the end of the season.

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Promoting Liam Lawson after six races is not ideal for Red Bull

Let's get one thing straight. Liam Lawson is an impressive talent and he showed how good he is when he replaced Daniel Ricciardo at AlphaTauri last season. While Christian Horner did hint that these last six races could be an audition for the New Zealand driver to get a Red Bull seat in 2025, the team has to be very careful.

After Daniel Ricciardo left the team in 2018, Red Bull used the policy of promoting homegrown talent as teammates for Max Verstappen. The results, however, were disastrous. Max Verstappen had a competitive partnership with Daniel Ricciardo, but the Australian's replacements in Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon were thrashed by the Dutch driver and ended up getting fired.

Do they want a repeat of history? Will it make sense for Liam Lawson to be sent into a fight-or-flight situation? After what happened with Gasly and Albon, Red Bull might want to play it safe.

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Daniel Ricciardo is a known quantity

Finally, something that Christian Horner alluded to in the interview on the F1 Nation podcast was Daniel Ricciardo being a known quantity. The Australian has not been exceptional but he's still been decent in most of the races. What he's also done is shown that if he can harness the peaks regularly, he can be a more than handy operator.

The position that Red Bull finds itself in is that it's quite possibly going to replace Sergio Perez at the end of the season. If Liam Lawson isn't a viable option, then Daniel Ricciardo might just end up being the one who finally gets a hold of that seat.