Pink Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko has ramped up the stress on RB F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo to enhance his performances.
The Australian has had a troublesome begin to the season for the rebranded RB outfit and adopted up a Thirteenth-place end in Bahrain by coming dwelling a lowly sixteenth in Saudi Arabia.
Ricciardo endured a torrid weekend in Jeddah and was out-qualified by teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who reached Q3 however was unable to remain throughout the top-10 within the race.
Writing in a column for Speedweek, Marko made it clear that he expects extra from Ricciardo, who has began 2024 on the again foot in comparison with Tsunoda.
“There’s so much at stake this season for each Yuki and Daniel,” Marko stated.
“Yuki’s qualifying was superb, and Ricciardo has to provide you with one thing quickly…
“At the very least Tsunoda is excellent in qualifying. Then they’re within the factors within the first stint, solely to fall additional behind afterwards…
“Whether or not they’re placing an excessive amount of pressure on the tyres or there are different causes is what you have to discover out.”
Ricciardo, who had a spin at Flip 1, claimed his RB automotive had not been “performing at one hundred pc” within the race.
The eight-time grand prix winner is focusing on a return to Pink Bull and Sergio Perez’s vacant seat for 2025, however is aware of he should up his performances if he’s to realize his purpose.
Perez has began the marketing campaign with back-to-back second place finishes behind teammate Max Verstappen to ease a few of the stress hanging over him as he appears to be like to retain his drive for a fifth season.
Nonetheless, the Mexican was equivocal in his response to being requested by Sky F1 if he needed to proceed with Pink Bull into 2025, replying: “I believe it’s actually early to say that.
“I need to wait a number of races to see how the whole lot goes.
“It’s clearly not straightforward or simple. [The seat] has some problems that we’ve seen up to now. We’ve seen nice drivers, they don’t even survive six months or a 12 months they usually’ve been nice drivers but it surely’s a novel crew in that regard.”
