Mar.24 (GMM) Whereas one driver is eyeing a transfer to Components 1’s high seat, his teammate is going through the exit door.
“That was a improbable efficiency,” Dr Helmut Marko, the notoriously stormy and influential F1 advisor at Purple Bull, instructed Servus TV in Melbourne.
“He was there the entire time and he didn’t make any errors. The primary 5 groups are so robust that it’s fairly an achievement for those who handle to be forward of them.”
He was referring to Yuki Tsunoda, who certified eighth – an unimaginable ten positions forward of his increasingly-struggling RB teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
Only a day earlier, Marko admitted each Ricciardo and Sergio Perez – each 34 – are getting too outdated to be the “future” stars of Purple Bull Racing, the vitality drink firm’s high Components 1 staff.
“Hopefully they may think about me,” Japanese Tsunoda, 23, mentioned in Melbourne.
“I wish to present my worth as a driver, additionally for the opposite groups. I wish to present that I’m an actual fighter.”
As for former race winner Ricciardo, nonetheless, his star appears to be fading shortly – even after Purple Bull rescued his profession final 12 months following his McLaren ousting.
“I feel the strain is an excessive amount of for him once more,” former F1 driver Giedo van der Garde instructed Viaplay. “In some way he can’t deal with it anymore.
“I don’t assume he’ll even make it to the tip of the season if he continues like this.”
Certainly, Australian Ricciardo doesn’t deny that he has been left within the shade by Tsunoda at his residence race this weekend. “I can inform you that I couldn’t have improved by seven tenths,” he mentioned, referring to his hole to the sister RB automotive.
It doesn’t bode nicely for Ricciardo’s probabilities of even staying in Components 1 subsequent 12 months, not to mention returning to Purple Bull Racing to be Max Verstappen’s new teammate.
“How’s he going to compete with Verstappen if he can’t get on high of Tsunoda in the identical staff?” former F1 driver David Brabham wonders to the Australian broadcaster 9.
“Immediately, confidence within the Purple Bull camp in Daniel will shortly flip in opposition to him.”
When requested if he would possibly swap to a different sequence if his F1 journey ends once more on the finish of the 12 months – and even earlier – Ricciardo mentioned he was solely within the high class of motorsport.
“I do know for certain it’s Components 1 or nothing,” he mentioned. “If we speak about different championships, then for now I’d quite stay only a fan.”
