Struggling Ricciardo vows not to get 'sidetracked' amid RB seat rumours

Visa Cash App RB driver Daniel Ricciardo is trying to get to the bottom of his poor start to the season, with the Australian under pressure to keep his spot in the sport.

Ricciardo started the 2024 season as one of the main candidates to potentially replace Red Bull's Sergio Perez ahead of 2025, but now looks to more be thinking about how he can extend his Formula 1 career beyond this season.

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He and team-mate Yuki Tsunoda are taking the Faenza-based team into their new era, but both only have contracts that last until the end of this season, making for a crucial team-mate battle - particularly with 22-year-old Liam Lawson waiting in the wings.

However, Tsunoda has hugely outperformed Ricciardo in the three races so far, with the Japanese driver heading into his home race with six points on the board, despite the clear performance issues that RB are suffering with.

This has led to Ricciardo - who is still sat on zero points - to be the subject of much speculation surrounding his future in F1, with Helmut Marko piling on the pressure on the so-called 'Honey Badger'.

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Ricciardo's soul searching

Now, Ricciardo has said that work has been going on within the team to try and get to the bottom of the 34-year-old's poor start, and why the car has provided such inconsistencies so far.

“Yeah, we’ve been putting a lot of work in off track as well in the off-weeks, trying to understand how much is me, how much is the car, what is it that maybe the car’s not giving me that I’m looking for and things like this," he told media ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix weekend.

“It’s really just small things here and there, so I think what’s important now is – because we’re not in a place where we’re lost or I don’t feel good – I think it’s important for us just to focus on… I sit down with my engineers and that’s it.

“We don’t start receiving suggestions from other people, of ‘have you thought about this’ or ‘do that’, because then you go down a rabbit hole that we’re certainly not willing or ready to go down. So yeah, it’s just really staying with the course.

“Obviously it is frustrating because I do want the results and I feel very prepared. I feel like I’m ready to get results, but yeah, we can’t get sidetracked by anything else really.”

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