Ricciardo accepts AlphaTauri 'will have its limitations'

“The car will be what it is”, said the Australian, ahead of his first time working with the package that saw his predecessor Nyck De Vries fail to score a point, before he was brutally kicked out of the AlphaTauri team after just 10 races.

"I’m going to drive it and work from there. I don’t want to get too much… Preconceived ideas."

"I appreciate the car’s going to have its limitations. I’m sure they’re probably just lacking some overall downforce and things like this, but I think if it's a car that feels balanced - it might not have as much grip as the Red Bull I drove a few days ago – that’s something I can work with."

"I’m looking forward to also developing it and using my experience, and ultimately, I think, for Budapest, just go out and have fun, try and use more left foot than right and have a good time!"

The decision was made to bring back Ricciardo to the grid almost immediately after he drove the Red Bull in their tyre test following the British Grand Prix. It’s said that he impressed on the timesheets, with lap times that would potentially have threatened the front of the grid in Silverstone’s qualifying sessions.

After struggling at McLaren in 2021 and 2022, he says he is starting to get his confidence back and feel more like the old version of himself, which has seen him win eight races in his career: “Getting back to Red Bull and just kind of the reception I had walking back into that team was really kind of, in a positive way, a little bit overwhelming,” he said.

“Once I’d done a few sim sessions and started feeling like myself again, it then just kind of brought me back to normal Daniel, where I was falling back in love and ready to go again.”

Ricciardo has almost gone full circle in his F1 career, after driving for Toro Rosso in his earlier days as a Red Bull Junior driver. Should he perform this time out with the Sister team, it's thought there is a chance he could make his way back to the Red Bull seat in the future: “That’s why it feels a bit like back when I was working my way up through it, in the Red Bull family,” he added.

“That was it, ‘If you get results, we’ll keep pushing you, we’ll keep pushing you’. That’s really like the mindset.

“I know the team… It’s been tough to get a points finish this year, a top 10, so to push this car and try to get it inside the top 10, I think that would get everyone pretty fulfilled and excited.”