Daniel Ricciardo has failed to fire so far through three races and now a former driver has delivered a brutal reality for the Aussie.
Having not registered a point this season, Ricciardo has reportedly been giving a two-race ultimatum to save his seat.
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The 34-year-old reportedly has the next two races in Japan and China to turn his fortunes around with Liam Lawson waiting in the wings to replace him.
But in the wake of the report, former Formula 1 driver Christijan Albers laid the boots further into the eight-time Grand Prix winner.
Ricciardo is continually seen around the grid with a beaming smile, but it’s this mindset that has got under the skin of Albers.
“What irritates me a little bit is that he keeps laughing and doing activities around driving,” he told De Telegraaf podcast.
“Just focus on the racing.
“Only then can you start being funny again.
“As a driver you want to go into hiding until you have beaten the rest, and then you can show yourself again. With him it is the other way around. All those activities are just painful.”
Rumours of Ricciardo’s ultimatum were shut down by the team, but Albers says the team should be ripping the band-aid off and throwing Lawson into the seat now.
“I don’t understand what the fear is about this choice. I just don’t understand it,” he said.
“Let’s be honest: Lawson beat Yuki Tsunoda in those few races. And Tsunoda has consistently been stronger than Nyck de Vries and Daniel Ricciardo.
“I don’t see this going well with Ricciardo. He just doesn’t have it anymore.”
Albers added: “He just has to make sure he beats the others. I just don’t think it’s fair.
“You have a Lawson, who has performed fantastically. He just needs to be given a chance, and he doesn’t get one. The whole purpose of the team is to train and promote young talent.”
Fans were quick to turn on Ricciardo after the Australian Grand Prix with senior editor at Maize & Blue Review Trevor McCue tweeting after the race: “The bigger statement is the Ricciardo experiment was essentially over before it began.
“He’s not getting the Red Bull seat and there is no point blocking Liam Lawson any longer.”
But the usually ruthless Marko gave Ricciardo an excuse for his Australian misery, putting at least some of the blame on the team.
“He’s struggling, we’ll have to see,” Marko said via Sky Germany.
“There were some good signs in the Bahrain test, but the last few races haven’t been going too well.
“I think Ricciardo needs a safe and confident car. I hope the team can give him that so he can at least be on par with Yuki.”
‘Pushing and not getting the result’ | 01:55
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner also gave Ricciardo some positives to take out of another pointless weekend.
“Obviously he had a tough weekend. It looked like he had pretty similar pace to Yuki in the race,” Horner said.
“Obviously he had a tough day yesterday getting that lap disallowed, so just wanted to give him a bit of encouragement.”
Asked if Ricciardo is in need of encouragement, Horner said: “He’s a big boy, he’ll pick himself up.
“F1 for a driver can be lonely so a bit of encouragement is never a bad thing.”
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