Horner reveals Ricciardo’s first Red Bull sim session was “a complete disaster"

Ricciardo rejoined Red Bull as a back-up for Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez after losing his full-time McLaren drive at the end of a torrid 2022 campaign. 

• Red Bull seat is Ricciardo's 'golden objective' - Horner 

The Australian’s Red Bull return ultimately paved the way for his comeback to the F1 grid at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix with AlphaTauri, where he will replace the underperforming Nyck de Vries. 

Providing fresh insight on Ricciardo’s return to Red Bull, team principal Horner made the admission that his first simulator outing did not go to plan. 

“It all kicked off in a hotel room in Mexico last year, I had a meeting with Daniel and it was clear that his options for this year were going to be a bit limited and he just looked pretty broken,” Horner told the F1 Nation podcast. 

“I said to him why didn’t he come back to Red Bull for 12 months, out of the car predominantly, help us with simulation work, and a bit of tyre testing, and just come back into the fold and refind his passion for the sport.

“Because it was clear that he wasn’t enjoying things. To be honest with you, I didn’t really recognise the Daniel over the last couple of years that we’d grown so used to, he’d grown up with us – so that’s where it started.

“He came in and drove the simulator a couple of days after Abu Dhabi, and it was a complete disaster. He’d picked up every bad habit imaginable. He was working with his previous engineer and gradually we unpicked it.

“With each session, he just got better and better, you could see his confidence growing to the point that he was absolutely on the pace with the race drivers.

“The plan was always to put him in for that Silverstone test. We kept him very busy on off-track activities, marketing-wise, and the test was extremely impressive.”

A recent Pirelli tyre test in the RB19 proved key to Ricciardo sealing his shock return to the F1 grid with Red Bull’s sister team. 

“I was just pleased to see that he was still able to operate at that level,” Horner said. 

“I mentioned to him that that would have put him on the front row of the grid, and you could see the relief in his eyes, and almost the pressure release off of his shoulders, that he could still do it and that he wasn’t going mad.

“The old Daniel was still there. And then his long runs were very impressive in the work that he did for Pirelli was absolutely on the money.”