Tsunoda's Chance to Shine: Can He Outperform New Teammate Ricciardo?
Jul.13 - The candidates to potentially replace Sergio Pérez at Red Bull are mounting up.
This week, as Dr Helmut Marko said McLaren's Lando Norris is the "strongest of the young drivers", rumours were also swirling connecting the disaffected Charles Leclerc with the energy drink company's top team.
That is on top of Max Verstappen declaring that his former teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who has just been re-promoted onto the grid with Red Bull's junior outfit AlphaTauri, has been doing "an excellent job" as reserve driver.
"Sure, he struggled at McLaren, but I always thought talent doesn't just go away," said the Dutchman.
"We quickly noticed how comfortable Daniel feels with us," the championship leader added. "Sometimes I ask him if he can try out a certain aspect of the setup for me that I find promising.
"Daniel's opinion is important to me," Verstappen said.
Some believe a half-season at AlphaTauri will be the perfect precursor to Australian Ricciardo, 33, returning to Red Bull Racing next year - even with Perez already under contract for 2024.
Perez, however, has not even made it into Q3 on his last five attempts consecutively.
Amid the speculation, the Mexican is now quoted as saying by Sky Deutschland: "If I'm honest, I couldn't care less.
"The whole team is behind me and they know what I can do. They know my potential and they support me," the 33-year-old added.
But yet another name can be thrown into the hypothetical running for a Red Bull Racing seat - Yuki Tsunoda.
Marko says the ousting of Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri is the perfect opportunity to assess Japanese Tsunoda in a head-to-head with proven race winner Ricciardo.
"Daniel will now be the benchmark for our junior Yuki Tsunoda," the 80-year-old Austrian confirmed to Sport1.
Marko also told De Telegraaf newspaper: "Yuki is underestimated by a lot of people.
"The AlphaTauri is not the easiest car to drive, but Yuki has proven that it is possible to get good results with it."
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In simple terms, if he out-performs Ricciardo, he'd probably secure drive in the B-team for another season.
However, if he gets out-performed by him regularly over the remaining twelve rounds, he'd probably get sacked unless Ricciardo replaces Checo.
Something that could well happen if the latter keeps underperforming with Ricciardo simultaneously shining.
Checos been both unlucky AND underperformed, not necessarily on the same race weekend though, he will come good again in Quali, and then what will we talk about, I know, you picked a fine time to ..... .. ........!
To answer the headline question.....no.
It's a nice thing to watch. Can't wait for the new radio messages of Yuki regarding this...hahaha
Hadn't thought of that. Should be a hoot. LOL
Marko states "The AlphaTauri is not the easiest car to drive", so I wonder what effect that will have on Ricciardo. That was the root of his issues with McLaren, not being able to come to terms with the car's balance.
If the Alpha Tauri is so difficult to drive, maybe Yuki will have the edge owing to his greater knowledge of the car ~ at least in the beginning!