Glaring Red Bull error leads to Daniel Ricciardo F1 comeback decision

It has been over a year now since Daniel Ricciardo was axed from Red Bull's junior team and replaced with Liam Lawson, but the ramifications are still being felt in F1.

The 2024 Singapore Grand Prix was a desperately sad affair, with the prospect of VCARB - now Racing Bulls - sacking Ricciardo becoming more and more likely throughout the weekend.

By the time Ricciardo set the fastest lap of the race while running right at the back of the grid, it was almost a certainty that we were watching the end of the Australian fan favourite's F1 career.

However, it was never officially announced that it was his last race until after the weekend, when the team revealed that he had been replaced by Lawson for the remainder of the 2024 season.

Lawson's time in the VCARB seat for the final six races was ultimately an audition for a seat with the main Red Bull team alongside Max Verstappen for 2025, but would they have been better off leaving things as they were?

Ricciardo's Red Bull return hopes dashed

Fast forward 12 months, and three different drivers have been Verstappen's team-mate since the 2024 Singapore GP, only scoring 25 points in 23 grands prix weekends between them.

Verstappen, meanwhile, has scored 361 points in that same time frame.

'They may as well have just left everything how it was', I hear you say, but Ricciardo wasn't exactly setting the world alight at the time, and arguably didn't deserve a promotion up into the main Red Bull team.

Ricciardo already raced with Red Bull between 2014 and 2018, winning seven grands prix, and partnering Verstappen for two full seasons.

Having left to pursue other opportunities and ultimately failing, Ricciardo rejoined the Red Bull family in 2023, first as a reserve driver for the main team, and then as a full-time racer with VCARB, following Nyck de Vries' sacking.

However, Ricciardo only scored points in one out of six race weekends that year, before taking that form into 2024, scoring 12 points from 18 race weekends while competing against Yuki Tsunoda.

That partnership was originally seen as a battle for the seat alongside Verstappen for 2025, with Sergio Perez struggling at Red Bull, but in the end it was neither of them that were given that seat.

Lawson and Tsunoda better than Ricciardo?

Having replaced Ricciardo at VCARB, Lawson then replaced Perez at Red Bull just a few months later.

His youth and room to grow was seen as the reason why he was picked over Tsunoda and Ricciardo, yet just two races into the campaign he was then axed and demoted back down to the junior team.

That paved the way for Tsunoda, but he has only managed to score 17 points across 17 race weekends.

There's reason to suggest that they should've just put Ricciardo in the RB21 alongside Verstappen for a year, or keep hold of Perez, knowing that the seat was a poisoned chalice.

Instead, they have ruined the confidence of two young drivers, and neither of them are likely to be in that seat alongside Verstappen in 2026, which is such a crucial year for the team.

That being said, the knock on effect of the axing of the veteran Ricciardo was that Isack Hadjar was given a chance with Racing Bulls for 2025, and how he has excelled in that seat.

He's already claimed his first career podium, and is ahead of both Tsunoda and Lawson in the drivers' championship despite not having raced with the main team at all in 2025.

So how is Lawson getting on a year since replacing Ricciardo? Well, in Friday's second practice at the 2025 Singapore GP, the Kiwi racer stuck his Racing Bulls car in the wall and triggered the second red flag of the session.

Lawson's current team-mate Hadjar could well be on his way to becoming a Red Bull driver in 2026, but we'll still be mourning the fact that the decision has now clearly been made that Ricciardo will not be returning to the grid once more.

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