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Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko recently took a subtle dig at Daniel Ricciardo for his subpar performance at the 2024 F1 Saudi Arabian GP.
Speaking to Sky Germany (via RacingNews365), Marko stated that Red Bull was relieved to see no safety car periods during the latter stages of the race. He added that Daniel Ricciardo was about to spin and cause a safety car, which could have cost Red Bull driver Sergio Perez second place in the race.
"Thank God there was no Safety Car at the end of the race, because we were still afraid of that, Ricciardo threatened to do it for a while. Otherwise we would have lost Perez's second place," Marko said.
The Aussie spun out at a chicane on lap 49 but it wasn't enough to warrant a caution flag.
Before this, Marko praised Perez's performance at the Saudi Arabian GP. He stated how Checo was able to overtake Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and was matching his Red Bull teammate, Max Verstappen's lap times.
"It was a good race by Perez, he overtook Leclerc relatively quickly and then he created a five-second gap. After that, he actually drove the same lap times as Max, so we are very satisfied," he added.
After several poor performances by Perez in 2023, loads of rumors surfaced that he could be replaced by Daniel Ricciardo during or after the 2024 F1 season. As of now, however, Checo has been keeping up with Verstappen and was able to finish second in the first two races in 2024.
Daniel Ricciardo reflects on his poor performance at the 2024 F1 Saudi Arabian GP
Daniel Ricciardo recently talked about his poor race weekend in Saudi Arabia. Speaking to the media, including Sportskeeda, the Visa CashApp RB driver stated that he felt helpless with an underperforming car and simply wanted the race weekend to end.
"Yeah just a tough one. One of those ones you just hope that it's over. Look I'm glad I'm back on the grid and all that so I don't want to be like ‘ah I just wanted to see the chequered flag’. I'm not in the mindset I was a couple of years ago but yeah just knowing that we don't quite have underneath us what we should that's where you feel a little bit helpless,” he said.
At the 2024 F1 Saudi Arabian GP, Ricciardo started the race in P14 but finished P16, two places behind his teammate Yuki Tsunoda. Their team has yet to score a point this season.
