Former Formula 1 team owner Eddie Jordan believes that Daniel Ricciardo “needs a result more than anyone” after the Australian endured an underwhelming start to the year.
After a torrid two-year stint at McLaren, Ricciardo went on an F1 hiatus at the start of 2023, only to be installed as Nyck de Vries’ mid-season replacement at AlphaTauri.
However, the Australian’s comeback was stunted when he broke his wrist during free practice for last year’s Dutch Grand Prix, meaning 2024 is his full-season chance to prove he still has what it takes to compete at a high level in F1.
But after being out-qualified in both of the opening rounds by RB team-mate Yuki Tsunoda and finishing a lowly 16th in Saudi Arabia with an uninspiring performance that included a late race spin, Jordan believes Ricciardo needs to step up.
“I don’t think there is a more loved personality in Formula 1, certainly got the best smile that I’ve ever seen in Formula 1,” Jordan said on the Formula For Success podcast.
“But you know, that doesn’t give you the right to be the driver in the team.
“I’m just worried that the end of McLaren era was really something that stood out and I couldn’t see where he’d lost it.
“There has been nothing since then that convinces me that I would want to invest my hard-earned sponsorship cash to keep Daniel.
“He needs a result more than anyone perhaps, and he needs to get it together. Because otherwise he is going to be replaced and he can understand why he would be replaced because the performance is just not there.
“I mean, he shouldn’t be spinning the car, he shouldn’t be getting himself out of sequence in a pit stop. You don’t see other people doing that.
“So, Daniel as much as we absolutely adore him and I think he’s a huge asset for Formula 1, the stopwatch never lies and the stopwatch in terms of Daniel, the question marks are out there.
“When we see people like Oliver Bearman coming in like the way he did, people like Daniel Ricciardo will have to look over his shoulders and say, ‘How much time have I left here?’”
Ricciardo previously spoke of designs to return to a race seat at Red Bull, but with Helmut Marko recently saying the Australian “has to come up with something soon,” one could argue, like Jordan that he needs to focus on retaining his RB seat, especially given the known prospect of Liam Lawson waiting in the wings.
Red Bull and RB Reserve Driver Lawson impressed as a stand-in for Ricciardo during the latter’s period on the sideline with injury.
The New Zealander lost out on a full-time race seat in 2024, despite beating Tsunoda on debut in Zandvoort, in Singapore and Suzuka.
For both Ricciardo and Tsunoda, Lawson serves as motivation to keep churning out positive results or be replaced, which has become a common tactic in the Red Bull sister-team setup.
