F1 pundit Ben Anderson recently speculated that Red Bull could have been even more dominant if Daniel Ricciardo had not left the team in 2018 and stayed as a second driver instead of Sergio Perez.
It is clear that Checo has experienced a dip in his performance ever since the Miami GP and has not been able to keep up with Max Verstappen, who has been dominating the field.
Speaking on The Race F1 podcast, Anderson imagined an alternate reality where Daniel Ricciardo stayed at Red Bull alongside Max Verstappen. Though he mentioned how Ricciardo struggled with McLaren after the 2022 F1 regulations, the F1 pundit reckons he would have been in a better place at Red Bull. He said:
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"So you wonder in an alternate reality where he stays at Red Bull and just, you know, grins and bears the fact that Max is the dominant force and the one who's calling the shots contractually and everything else. Would he have got to 2022 and this version of the Red Bull and just come unstuck in some way that's similar, but maybe not quite as obvious as it wasn't McLaren."
Furthermore, Ben Anderson speculated that Daniel Ricciardo would have been closer to Max Verstappen compared to Sergio Perez, and the team would have been even more dominant. He concluded:
"Or would he not have learned any bad habits or lost his way, and would actually he have been a much closer match for Max. I'm not sure that he'd be able to beat him, but I could imagine that they might have been a little bit more dominant in that version of the world where he stays."
"I did not really need to think much about it" - Daniel Ricciardo on joining AlphaTauri
Daniel Ricciardo recently explained how his call with Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko regarding joining AlphaTauri went. The Australian revealed that he was ready to take the opportunity and felt a sense of deja vu since he was at Toro Rosso (currently AlphaTauri) when he started his journey in F1.
In an exclusive interview on the F1 YouTube channel, Ricciardo said:
"I did not really need to think much about it, you know, in terms of... I think as well being back in this family I feel so much... yeah, I feel like I'm kind of just going through it all again."
He added:
"And these were the calls that, you know, I used to get, and this was kind of the moments that used to kind of thrown in front of us. So, there was no question that I was going to say yes, it was just, yeah I guess the reality of 'okay it is going to happen pretty soon.'"
Daniel Ricciardo will start driving for AlphaTauri from the F1 Hungarian GP.
