That is the revelation of AlphaTauri CEO Peter Bayer, who claims Reꦫd Bull wanted to k🥃eep Ricciardo in his reserve role, before later having a change of heart. 

Ricciardo was parachuted in to replace the underperforming Nyck de Vries after just 1🐻0 races in 2023, completing a shock comeback to the F𒆙1 grid just months after losing his McLaren drive. 

“Originally it was said: “No, Daniel is a reserve driver at Red Bꦅull and it stays that way’”, Bayer is quoted as telling German💫 publication Motorsport Magazin.

“And then over the course of a month we actually 🌳kept asking how thi🀅ngs were going.

“At some point Christian Horner [Red Bull team principal] came to us and said: ‘We’re doing the test at Silverstone, m🧸aybe we’ll ꦅtake a look at it’.

“Then Helmut [Marko, head of Red Bull’s driver development programme] said: ‘Y🐓es, why not?’” 

The 34-year-old Australian scored AlphaTauri’s best result of the year in Mexico and helped the team secure eighth place in the coไnstructors’ championship. 

“🔯Daniel has experience, so🉐 he helps us with the setup on all the routes,” Bayer added. 

“Daniel is a real r༒eference for Yuki [Tsunoda]. He brought an incredible amount of new energy into the team within a week.

“ꦜOur mechanics were happy: ‘Hey, wow, something is hap💟pening!’. The transition wasn’t easy, but at the end of the day it had such a positive impact."