Daniel Ricciardo ready for Red Bull fight after missing out on F1 'bonus'
Daniel Ricciardo chose to look on the bright side after AlphaTauri failed to secure seventh place in the championship.
The team went into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix knowing they needed to score well to overtake Williams. But in the end they fell short by three points as Yuki Tsunoda was eighth and Ricciardo just outside the points.
Eighth place is still evidence of progress for a team which spent the vast majority of the season rooted to the foot of the standings. And Ricciardo, who only raced seven times this year, is looking forward to what can be achieved going forward.
He said: "Obviously, I wasn't on board for the first part of the season. But the way the team turned it around, with the updates, and then I would like to think Yuki and myself pushed each other a little bit, and that's positive for the team.
"There's a lot the team can be excited about moving into next year. Of course, seventh would have been nice, but a few races ago we were talking about not finishing 10th, so seventh would have been a bonus. But it gives us a little bit more to fight for next year."
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Ricciardo will do all he can to help the team to make more progress in 2024. And success on that front would do harm to his own personal ambition to earn a return to the senior Red Bull team.
That is the Aussie's ultimate target in this new chapter of his Formula 1 career and he has made no secret of it. And, given Sergio Perez's struggles this season, an opportunity for him to fulfil that desire may come and so Ricciardo will have to make sure he is in form if it does.
But if the chance never presents itself, then Ricciardo insists he is happy where he is. "I'm definitely here to stay and I want to stay in the Red Bull family - being back here, it just feels very right for me," he exclusively told Mirror Sport .
"I do like Helmut [Marko, the Red Bull adviser who oversees its driver programme] and his hard approach – I'm a nice, easy-going person but his approach really does work for me. I think it gets a little more out of myself. And Christian [Horner, Red Bull team principal] I've always had a good relationship with. I just feel like the chemistry in the team is really good and I like that.
"The big picture would be to get back to that team and that car one day, but I also said that if there is not an opening then I want to stay here. The team is going through a rebuild for next year and if I can contribute and get this team more towards the front and to be taken more seriously, that's it. If it's not the big team, it's here."
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