Christian Horner insists Daniel Ricciardo’s return to F1 was unrelated to Sergio Perez and part of Red Bull “rebuilding” the Aussie

Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner mentioned that Daniel Ricciardo returning to F1 after seven months out was unrelated to them eying him to replace Sergio Perez.

The Aussie driver returned to the grid at the Hungarian Grand Prix to replace Nyck De Vries on the AlphaTauri F1 team. He was straightaway able to outqualify and out-race his teammate Yuki Tsunoda on the track, making his bid to replace Perez in Red Bull even stronger.

But speaking with SpeedCafe, Horner confirmed that Daniel Ricciardo's return had nothing to with Perez and was only concerned with replacing de Vries, saying:

"I don’t think so.” [if the two situations were linked]. I was keen to bring Daniel back into the fold. We spent the last seven months rebuilding him and getting the old Daniel bank that we recognize from when he was last with us. It was always scheduled for him to do that tire test and that was going to be very much a moment in time just to see where he was at.”

He added:

“I think with Nyck struggling to get to grips with it, it just took on more relevance to give AlphaTauri some direction with an experienced driver. It seemed to make a great deal of sense, and after his performance at the test, it was a no-brainer.”

Daniel Ricciardo explains how a former race engineer helped him regain confidence

Daniel Ricciardo stated his former race engineer at Red Bull Simon Rennie helped him regain his confidence back in the simulator.

Speaking with F1.com, he said:

“When I first drove the sim, I could see it now that a bit of time had passed. I was kind of lacking a little bit of that confidence and going out there and just driving, in simple terms. You get other thoughts that creep into your mind and also going back into Red Bull, it was exciting for me, but I was also, for sure, a little bit nervously excited.”

He added:

“It took a little bit to shake a few things out and try to find my old self again. I think what helped a lot was working with Simon – so Simon Rennie, my engineer at Red Bull back when I was racing there. He's been running the sim. I think that as well – getting a bit of familiarity, working with him – kind of quickly got my confidence back."

It will be fascinating to see how Daniel Ricciardo performs in the second half of the season after having a few more races under his belt.