Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo Demands Michael Schumacher-Like Special Treatment in the Quest to Regain Lost Form: “I Had That for So Many Years”

Once one of the hottest prospects on the grid, Daniel Ricciardo now has to satisfy with the reserve driver role at Red Bull. His career trajectory has not gone according to his plan ever since he left the Milton-Keynes outfit in 2018. After calling it quits with McLaren, Ricciardo is not giving up his hopes of returning to the grid in the future.

Ricciardo had multiple different to choose from in order to race next year. However, Daniel chose to avoid joining a backmarker like Haas or Williams and took the reserve driver seat in a ‘top team’ instead.

The Honey badger opens up about taking inspiration from Michael Schumacher

Interestingly, the Australian hopes to take up some inspiration from Michael Schumacher to build up his confidence. In the latest podcast of Beyond the Grid, Ricciardo acknowledges how he’s always had confidence in his abilities but sometimes struggled to believe it.

The Australian also hopes that Red Bull can help him find his old form and confidence back. He uses an instance of Ferrari’s special treatment for the 7-time world champion.

Tom Clarkson stated that Ferrari gave Schumacher a whole day of testing at the start of every season to build his confidence. When asked to give his thoughts on the same, Ricciardo stated, “Yeah, it’s funny. I had that for many years. I would say after a few years in F1, it kind of, it didn’t happen anymore.”

The Australian added, “But all through my junior categories and the early years of F1 after a summer break or a winter break in Europe. Because we wouldn’t be in a race car for 3 months, I would always have that, a bit like you said with (Michael) Schumacher, I would always have that apprehensive feel if that makes sense of “okay, can I still do it”?”

READ MORE: Daniel Ricciardo Gets Real on Hopeless McLaren Moments That Made Him Say: “S*rew This… I’m Done”

Many believe that the Honey Badger will eventually replace Perez as Max Verstappen’s teammate after the duo’s feud in Brazil. It will be interesting to see if something builds up along those lines next season.

Daniel Ricciardo reveals having conversations with RBR’s rival team Mercedes

Red Bull Racing announced that Daniel Ricciardo would join them as their reserve driver for the upcoming season. The Aussie driver’s ironic return as the team’s third driver was a bit confusing to some fans given he left them to escape the shadows of becoming their ‘second driver.’

Danny Ric also had conversations with RBR’s rival team Mercedes. However, he chose the Milton-Keynes team’s familiarity over the Silver Arrows. Moreover, he also revealed that he was grateful to be valued highly by the top teams despite enduring a difficult spell at McLaren.

Speaking on the In the fast lane podcast, Ricciardo said, “There was a part of me as well where, when I was at Red Bull, Mercedes was always the team. Of course, they were dominating. It was a team I was looking at.”

He further mentioned, “I had some conversations with them back in the day, and to have a few more now was nice. Again, it was nice just to still be valued by some top teams after the couple of years I’ve had.”

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Can Daniel Ricciardo fight his way back to the F1 grid now?