Christian Horner has confirmed that Daniel Ricciardo has made it his objective to return to Red Bull Racing in 2025.

Ricciardo is now two races into his return to F1 with AlphaTauri after being handed the seat after a decision was made to axe Nyck de Vries just 10 grands prix into his rookie campaign.

In his opening race in Hungary, Ricciardo did well to finish in his starting spot of 13th after being one of the unwitting victims in a first-corner collision sparked by Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu.

In the last round in Belgium, Ricciardo came close to scoring a point in the sprint before being unable to make headway in the main race in which he finished 16th, six places behind team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, who scored only the team’s third point of the year.

Horner has so far made it clear Red Bull will not be axing Sergio Perez at the end of the season, and that he will see out his contract with the team that runs through to the end of 2024.

For 2025, however, the gloves are off.

“Obviously, the reason Daniel was brought back into the seat is not because he has long-term aspirations to be an AlphaTauri driver for the next five years,” said Horner. “He sees it as the quickest route to getting back into a competitive seat.

“Clearly his objective is on a 2025 Red Bull Racing seat when we obviously have a vacancy.

“Daniel has an opportunity between now and the end of the year to demonstrate he hasn’t lost any of his form, and then a decision will be made as to whether he remains in that seat for a further 12 months.

“It is clear that AlphaTauri drivers, and Toro Rosso drivers before that, have been placed there to develop them as potential Red Bull Racing candidates. Daniel’s very aware of that, and that’s his objective.”

Whilst Red Bull and AlphaTauri/Toro Rosso have proven in the past that contracts carry little weight, Perez has at least shown a return to form over the last two races following a run of six consecutive races in which he failed to reach Q3 in what is clearly the best car on the grid.

The Mexican driver was third in Hungary and second in Belgium, the latter his best result since the Miami GP in early May, to quell any suggestions he could be axed with a year remaining on his contract.

Horner insists that helping Perez rediscover the performance from earlier in the season when he won two races has been “a team effort”.

“Every driver is different,” said Horner. “Some need an arm around the shoulder, some need a kick up the butt.

“Checo is definitely the arm-around-the-shoulder type of character, and we’re just doing our best to support him as a team, to give him the help to achieve what we know he’s capable of.”