Christian Horner taunted Zak Brown at F1 Australian Grand Prix over Daniel Ricciardo: “He looked skinny, picked up habits”
Popular veteran Ricciardo is back at the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:F1 Australian Grand Prix, his home race, but is absent from the grid and is instead a third dr💟iver for Red Bull.
He was let go by McLaren last season, a year before his contract was due to expire, af🅘ter two underwhelming years.
Red Bull team principal Horner, sat next to McLaren CEO Brown, told him: “We had to feed him up, I don⛎’t know what you guys did to him!
“He looked skinny. He looks he🧔althier now. He’s traini꧒ng hard and ready to go, given a chance.”
Asked how much preparation Ricciardo might need to re🌄turn to an F1 car, Horner said: “He’s 10 minutes 💞away from being ready. He’s in good shape, he has kept fit and well.”
Horner addressed Ricciardo’s sp𝔍ell at McLaren: “When you drive a car that has its limita🧸tions, you adapt and adjust to extract the maximum out of the car.
“It was clear when he came back that he had picked up some habits that we di❀dn’t recognise from the Daniel that left us years🐟 earlier.
“He’s had a chance to re-set, got into the 2023 work, he’s hit the ground running and he likes the feel of the car in the virtual world, which correlates well with what we’re seeiꦑng i the actual world.
“He’s desperate𝓡 for a run in the car 𝐆to validate that.
“He’s getting back to being the Daniel we know.”
Ricciardo’s axing from McLare💟n last season, where he was constantly behind teammate Lando Norris, featured hea💜vily in Netflix’s Drive To Survive.
Brown’s decision-making 🍒was a dramatised theme in the show.
“I’m thrilled he’s here,” Brown n♍ow says. “We’re all Daniel fans, he lights up a room.
“I don’t think we know, or 🐻he knows, why it didn’t click. Sometimes driverꦉs needs to be charged with batteries - Fernando Alonso and Alain Prost did.
“Hopefull𒁏y Daniel will get a chance to win his ninth grand prix and many more, we’d al♛l like to see him back on a regular basis.”
Horner said about Ricciardo’s role in Melbourne this weekend: “It’s great to have him back in blue. He’s really throwing 💮himself into it, sitting in all the briefings and working hard on the simulators.
“Daniel is a positive energy, it’s great to see him💮 getting his mojo back. He lights up a room.
“He’s not driving but he’s probably the mꦗost popular driver here.
“It must be tough for him, not being a race driv🅷er this weekend. But he has embraced this new role.”
James w✃as a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
