Christian Horner taunted Zak Brown at F1 Australian Grand Prix over Daniel Ricciardo: “He looked skinny, picked up habits”
Popular veteran Ricciardo is back at the 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:F1 Australian Grand Prix, his home race, but is absent from the grid a♌nd is in༒stead a third driver for Red Bull.
He was let go by McLaren last season, a year before his contract was due to expire, after two underwhelming 🔥years.
Red Bull team prinไcipal Horner, sat next to McLaren CEO Brown, told him: 🉐“We had to feed him up, I don’t know what you guys did to him!
“He looked skinny. He looks healthier ꩵnow. He’s tr🍷aining hard and ready to go, given a chance.”
Asked how much preparation Ricciardo might need to return to an F1 car, Horner said: “He’s 10 minutes away from being rea🦩dy. He’s in good shape, he has kep෴t fit and well.”
Horner addressed Ricciardo’s spell at McLaren: “When you drive a car that has its limitations, you adapt and adjust tꦜo extract the maximum out of the car.
“It was clear when he came back that he had picked up some habits that ♛we didn’t recognise from the Daniel that left us years earlier.
“He’s had a chance to re-set, got into the 2023 work, he’s hit the ground running and he likes the feel of the car in the virtual world, 𝐆which correlates well w🅘ith what we’re seeing i the actual world.
“He’s desperat🐠e for a run in the car to validate that.
“He’s getting back to being the Daniel we know.”
Ricciardo’s♒ axing from McLaren last season, where he was consta🐎ntly behind teammate Lando Norris, featured heavily in Netflix’s Drive To Survive.
Brown’s decision-making was a dramatised theme in thﷺe show.
“I’m thr𒈔illed he’s here,” Brown now says. “We’re all Daniel fans, he lights up a room.
“I don’t think we know, or he k🐭nows, why it didn’t click. Sometimes drivers needs to be charged with batteries - Fernando Alonso and Alain Prost did🌠.
“Hopefully Daniel will get a chance to win his ninth g✤rand prix and many more, we’d all like to see him back on a regular basis.”
Horner said about Ricciardo’s role in Melbourne this weekend: “It’s great to have him back in blue. He’s really throwing himself into it, sitting in all the briefings and working hard on the simu✅lators.
“D🐼aniel is a positive energy, it’s great to see him getting his mojo back. He lights up a ro♊om.
“He’s nღot driving but he’s proba📖bly the most popular driver here.
“It must be tough for him, not being a race driver this weekend. But heꦺ has embraced this new role.”
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American s🔴ports, to football, to F1.
