It’s official! Daniel Ricciardo is back in F1, and the news has sparked an unsurprising frenzy of reaction.
Ricciardo is to join AlphaTauri on loan for the remainder of this season with immediate effect after the team ruthlessly opted to axe Nyck de Vries, who was only given 10 grands prix to prove himself.
Naturally, the news that Ricciardo will be back on the F1 grid from the forthcoming Hungarian Grand Prix has been greeted with overwhelming approval, but also a degree of sadness with the brutality at the way De Vries has been treated.
Here is the best of the reaction on social media.
When the news drops that you’ll be back on the #F1 grid at the next race… pic.twitter.com/AaZipnFb6j
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) July 11, 2023
DANIEL RICCIARDO IS OFFICIALLY BACK ON THE #F1 GRID!!!!
— F1 Australian Grand Prix (@ausgrandprix) July 11, 2023
*yells* GUESS WHO’S BACK?!?! 👀 @danielricciardo pic.twitter.com/C7nzGsrocP
— F1 Miami Grand Prix (@f1miami) July 11, 2023
Back together on the grid 🏁 @danielricciardo 🤝 @yukitsunoda07 pic.twitter.com/lxt7GJhdNe
— Red Bull Motorsports (@redbullmotors) July 11, 2023
Cowboy Ricc has re-entered the chat 🤠 https://t.co/xlGkPRvujy
— Circuit of The Americas (@COTA) July 11, 2023
Cowboy Ricc has re-entered the chat 🤠 https://t.co/xlGkPRvujy
— Circuit of The Americas (@COTA) July 11, 2023
Haven’t publicly spoken about this. Can only imagine how hard it must be to quickly get used to an F1, perform with only a couple days testing. Nyck is getting closer to Tsunoda every weekend, who, let’s not forget, had to have a couple of bad days himself to get to this level https://t.co/KvuwfOqRKr
— Antonio Felix da Costa (@afelixdacosta) July 11, 2023
This is a bit harsh in several directions
A) I think it’s fair to expect a full season to prove you can perform, especially when the car has been such a moving target.
B) Taking DR and not Lawson seems to demonstrate no confidence from RB in their driver roster. https://t.co/P10Oih4x0T
— Alex Brundle (@AlexBrundle) July 11, 2023
Never expected it to be over so quickly for Nyck. If you look back at it, the amount of time he was given to get used to the car and the progress he made (slowly but surely) it’s – in my opinion – been too soon. As for Nyck, this hurts like a m*#%{f^]er. pic.twitter.com/GorCrWqex2
— Giedo van der Garde (@GvanderGarde) July 11, 2023
When you axe a driver after 10 races it shows the process of making the hiring decision is wrong.
Motor Racing relies too much on instinct or “one lap” or “one race result” instead of looking the long term norm of a specific driver.
So much methodology and data to make the car…
— Lucas Di Grassi (@LucasdiGrassi) July 11, 2023
Discussion about this post