Ricciardo can ‘look back on something amazing even if it’s his last race’

Max Verstappen says his former team mate Daniel Ricciardo can look back on his career with pride even if this weekend’s race is his last.

RB are expected to announce after this weekend’s race who will partner Yuki Tsunoda at the team in 2025. However there are rumours Red Bull’s second will replace Ricciardo immediately after this weekend’s race.

Asked whether Ricciardo deserved to stay in F1 next year, Verstappen came to the defence of his former team mate, who left Red Bull at the end of 2018.

“Daniel’s a great guy,” said the world champion. “I think he has proven himself as a great Formula 1 driver. He is a friend of mine and I think in general always being in this kind of position is never nice.”

Ricciardo won seven races for Red Bull, then spent two years at Renault before joining McLaren, and scoring his most recent victory in the 2021 Italian Grand Prix. However, following a string of poor results the team dropped him at the end of 2022, one year before his contract was due to expire.

Red Bull rehired Ricciardo and placed him at its junior team in the middle of last season, amid rumours he was being considered for a promotion back to the top team alongside Verstappen. However he has been out-scored by his less experienced team mate Yuki Tsunoda so far this year.

“I don’t think he has to feel sorry for himself,” Verstappen continued. “Sometimes things maybe don’t work out the way you want them in certain stages of your career, but you still have achieved a lot, more than anyone could ever dream of in their lives.

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“So even if this is the last race or whatever, you can still look back on something amazing that not many people can achieve.”

“He’s a great guy so for me it doesn’t really matter or not you deserve to be here,” Verstappen added. “A lot of people deserve to be here, and some don’t deserve to be here. That’s life, also, in all kinds of sports, that’s how it goes.”

Ricciardo’s decision to leave the race-winning Red Bull team in 2018 attracted much comment at the time. Asked whether he was surprised Ricciardo had largely failed to find success elsewhere, Verstappen said “it’s very difficult to comment on these things because you cannot look within the team as well.”

“From the outside, maybe people always expect more or wish for more,” he said. “It’s just very tough in the midfield, I would say, to have a great run of form, also.

“I guess everyone hopes for more. I think also himself, you always want to be better eventually. Every year you want to become a better driver and sometimes that works a bit better than other years.