Daniel Ricciardo makes Red Bull future admission as Helmut Marko sparks exit talk

Daniel Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo has conceded it is RB or nowhere for F1 2025 after Red Bull senior advisor Helmut Marko sparked further doubts about his future with the team.

While Yuki Tsunoda has been confirmed for next season, Ricciardo’s fate still hangs in the balance but comments made by Marko this week will not have filled him with much hope.

Daniel Ricciardo reacts to latest Helmut Marko comments

Additional reporting from Thomas Maher

Comments from Marko surfaced this week in which he said RB “must be run as a junior team” to Red Bull and for that reason, Liam Lawson will be put in the seat “soon” but Ricciardo is insistent he does not believe everything he reads.

“I’ve become really good at not reading things,” he told media including PlanetF1.com in Austria. “So I actually didn’t know about it until I was told when I got here.

“I don’t feel one way or another about it, I still know that the overriding thing in this sport is performance. Like that’s it and that’s what will give me my best chance of staying here. I know that it’s not going to be my nice smile or anything else.

“It’s the on-track stuff so I’ve obviously got a good opportunity, I say until the summer break.

“I don’t think that’s a deadline but obviously that’s what you look at for the first half of the season. So I try to do what I can and obviously help my cause.”

Ricciardo was then asked if he had any other options for next season and the Australian admitted that it was RB or nowhere.

“I would say no,” he said of other opportunities at a different team. “I don’t know but I am, not to be stubborn or arrogant about it, but I’m not looking anywhere else.

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“I said I really do enjoy being back in the [Red Bull] family. I weirdly do enjoy sometimes a little bit of the pokes from Helmut because I think it also could also be a way to get me a little bit fired up and try to get the best out of me.”

Ricciardo arrives in Austria hoping to improve on his P15 in Spain but despite the result, the eight-time race winner said he felt good in the car in Barcelona.

“I look back at Barcelona and it’s hard to get excited about the 15th but I actually was really happy with my race,” he said. “So I would say it’s at least now two better weekends in a row.

“I think that’s what I’ve certainly had trouble doing this year, is having a kind of string of good results.

“Still not enough of course, at least for where I want to be but now we have two more ahead and so I definitely have a chance to get into the summer break with some momentum.”