Ricciardo remains without an F1 race contract for 2025 though is understood to be in contention for a Red Bull Racing call up in place of Sergio Perez.
Perez is under intense pressure after Red Bull’s constructors’ championship advantage was slashed to just 51 points after the Hungarian Grand Prix. In Miami, the squad held a 114-point lead over Ferrari.
After crashing out of qualifying and starting Sunday’s race 16th, Perez climbed to seventh at the chequered flag.
With Max Verstappen fifth, Red Bull Racing amassed just 16 points, its third worst haul of the season.
McLaren meanwhile surged into second in the constructors’ championship with an Oscar Piastri-led one-two.
With that fight worth potentially tens of millions of dollars for the team, the team needs both its drivers contributing – something Perez has failed to do for some time.
But despite being linked with a possible promotion from RB to Red Bull Racing following the F1 summer break, and the fact he doesn’t yet have a race contract for next year, Ricciardo claims he’s not looking too far into the future.
“Definitely take it as it comes,” he said of his current approach to his future.
“You just can’t afford to look too far ahead.
“Planning ahead in this sport is not the right thing to do, so it’s race by race. That’s the approach.
“Obviously just trying to be present and making sure I’m fully in the moment and giving everything I can on that given day. That’s definitely the approach I’m taking.
“It’s also how you’re perceived in this sport,” he added.
“You’re as good as your last race. You can have five bad races and the you have this amazing result, and everyone’s like ‘Well, we knew that they could do it’.”
The 35-year-old returned to the F1 grid at last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix and stated then that his end goal is a return to Red Bull Racing at some point.
Speaking ahead of last weekend’s race he confessed that event, plus this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, are arguably the most important races of his career.
Logic follows that, should he be looked over to replace Perez that his future in F1 is murky.
Failure to be promoted now suggests Red Bull management does not view him as a safer bet than a misfiring Perez, or part of its short/medium-term future, casting doubt over his role at RB in 2025.
Curiously, once thought to have no options outside of the Red Bull programme, whispers in Hungary claimed he’d had conversations with Sauber (Audi).
The Hungarian Grand Prix was a frustrating one for Ricciardo, who bemoaned poor strategy decisions that left him outside of the points and prompted a frank admission from team principal Laurent Mekies.
“We got it wrong with Daniel and pitted him too early in heavy traffic, which lost him a chance to fight for points,” Mekies confessed.
“His pace had been extremely strong all weekend long, and he demonstrated that again in the final stint of the race when he was finally able to find some free air and fight his way back. We certainly share his frustration.”
It was hardly the result Ricciardo needed as he attempts to convince Christian Horner and Dr Helmut Marko that he is a better bet than Perez.
However, his pace earlier in the weekend demonstrated that 12th at the flag wasn’t a result of a lack of pace, frustrating the 35-year-old.
“I don’t understand,” he said of his Hungarian race strategy.
“We had a medium. The tyre’s going to go, so let’s just use it.
“Look, I don’t know if by doing that [pitting early] that allowed Yuki to get points, but from my understanding we both could have done it.
“We both could have done it. We were both quick enough, we had the pace all weekend.
“Unless I’m missing something, I really don’t think I am…”
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