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Ricciardo came into this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix under a cloud with rampant speculation surrounding his future.
A clause in Liam Lawson’s contract elapsed on the Sunday of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with the New Zealander expected to join the grid for 2025.
That would seemingly mean Ricciardo, an eight-time grand prix winner and one of the sport’s most popular drivers, misses out, likely ending his career.
Aware of the position his former team-mate finds himself in, Verstappen is sympathetic to an extent, but equally pragmatic about the brutality of life in F1.
“Daniel is a great guy,” Verstappen began.
“I think he has proven himself as a great Formula 1 driver. He’s a friend of mine. And I think, in general, always being in this kind of position is never nice.
“But at the other end also, I don’t think he has to feel sorry for himself.
“Sometimes things maybe don’t work out the way you want them in certain stages of your career, but you still have achieved a lot more than anyone could ever dream of in their lives.”
The 35-year-old Ricciardo returned to F1 midway through last season with the intent of rebuilding his reputation after two torrid years with McLaren.
His end game was to join Verstappen at Red Bull Racing once again, having partnered the Dutchman from 2016 until his departure at the end of 2018.
However, inconsistent performances since his return, and a sluggish start to 2024, meant he was overlooked when a potential berth appeared to open up.
Though his position at RB was assured until the end of the year, the situation begged the question; if Ricciardo was not in Red Bull Racing’s thinking, what purpose did he fill at RB?
The extension to that was questioning the purpose of RB itself, a team which was once Toro Rosso and existed to feed Red Bull Racing with highly credentialed juniors – just as it once had with Ricciardo.
A rebranding this year was designed to see the team stand on its own feet, suggesting a step away from being the feeder operation it once was, a point contradicted by comments made by Helmut Marko – a firm supporter of Liam Lawson.
Though he stopped short of saying Ricciardo deserved a seat in F1, Verstappen suggests it is far from the end – even if it is in F1.
“Even if this is, let’s say, the last race or whatever, you can still look back at something amazing that not many people can achieve and do something else maybe in life,” Verstappen suggested.
“Many more… other race series or not. Maybe just chill back at the farm. Have a lot of fun. I mean, he’s a great guy.
“For me, it doesn’t really matter or not if you deserve to be here – a lot of people deserve to be here, some don’t deserve to be here, that’s life also in all kinds of sports. It’s how it goes.”
