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Daniel Ricciardo replacing Sergio Perez and partnering Max Verstappen at Red Bull is something that could become a reality soon, especially if the Mexican's performances don't improve. On the other hand, making his way back to F1, Ricciardo has shown decent form and flashes of speed that indicate how well he drove in the past.
The race in Mexico was interesting if we take this into consideration because that was Ricciardo's second race back since his wrist injury. The Australian driver out-qualified Sergio Perez in a Red Bull and scored a decent haul of points for AlphaTauri as well.
Even in the race in Brazil, Ricciardo had a respectable race even though it wasn't anywhere close to the kind of performance he had in Mexico. Having said that, there's one thing, one major red flag that goes back to the 2018 F1 season that Red Bull needs to be wary of before signing the Aussie.
Now before we talk about the red flag, let's take a look at the relative performances of the teammates that succeeded Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull.
Max Verstappen vs Daniel Ricciardo's successors at Red Bull
#1 Pierre Gasly
Qualifying:1-11
Races: 1-11
Points: 63-181
Pierre Gasly was the first driver to replace Daniel Ricciardo in 2019 and he lasted for the best part of half a season. The results compared to Max Verstappen did not look good then and they don't look good four years with the benefit of hindsight either.
Ricciardo saw Verstappen score almost thrice as many points as he did and could only outqualify and outrace his teammate just once during his stint with the team.
#2 Alex Albon
Qualifying:1-25
Races: 1-17 (Excluding DNFs)
Points: 177-311
Alex Albon replaced Gasly in 2019 mid-season and looking back it's safe to say that he did not fare well either. He was part of Red Bull for 18 months and during that time he would outqualify Verstappen just once.
Even in races if we exclude the DNFs for both drivers there was only one race where he outraced his teammate and finally, in terms of points, the gap was quite big,
#3 Sergio Perez
Qualifying: 10-54
Races: 8-48 (Excluding DNFs)
Points: 753-1373.5
Next up we have Sergio Perez, who joined Red Bull in 2021 and has been a part of the team since. During that time, the Mexican's record sees him at a qualifying record of 10-54 as well as a race head-to-head of 8-48. In terms of points as well, the gap is huge between him and his teammate.
The Red Flag with Daniel Ricciardo
When we talk about the Max Verstappen-Daniel Ricciardo partnership, we tend to take all three years into consideration. However, there's one key detail we miss in all of this.
In 2016 and 2017, Verstappen was still learning and maturing, he had not truly become the complete package and was still making a lot of mistakes. Early 2018 also had the Red Bull driver making far too many mistakes and it wasn't until the race in Monaco that the Dutchman flipped the switch.
Even Verstappen has admitted that after the race in Monaco, he needed a reset in his approach. He became more measured and the results were instant.
When we talk about the Red Flag when it comes to Daniel Ricciardo, it is his relative performance against his teammate post that race in Monaco. Let's take a look.
Head to Head with Max Verstappen post-2018 F1 Monaco GP
Qualifying: 1-14
Races: 1-7 (Excluding DNFs)
Points: 98-214
Before we delve into these numbers we need to take one thing into consideration and that is the poor reliability of the Renault power unit. This led to a lot of DNFs from both drivers and hence the points difference might not be truly indicative.
Having said that, the divergence in qualifying and races when both drivers finished is truly indicative of how much gap Verstappen had pulled on Daniel Ricciardo already even in 2018.
The numbers where the Australian out-qualified Verstappen only once after Monaco and only once finished ahead of him in the rest of the season are very similar to what Gasly, Albon, and Perez had.
Conclusion
Looking at these numbers it's safe to say that Daniel Ricciardo was getting dominated by Max Verstappen in the same manner as his successors did. In 2018, the Australian did not have the kind of perception that many of him right now.
He was looked at as one of the best drivers in F1 at the time. Right now, there are still question marks over how good he is. After his stint with Lando Norris at McLaren there are many that question how good he is. In 2018, there was no such thing.
Despite that, Ricciardo's record against Verstappen was as bad as any of his successors as soon as his teammate became more measured in his approach.
Red Bull is looking at the Australian as an upgrade to Sergio Perez. But is he really? If we solely look at these numbers, this does not seem to be the case in any which way.
