There is currently really no reason why Daniel Ricciardo should get a race seat at all.
There is and it should be obvious to everyone. Red Bull want him there. They marketed his “homecoming” while they evaluated him privately and as soon as they felt he was a better choice than Nyck de Vries and their juniors they put him in the car.
They probably had the contract for next year worked up before Liam stepped in, so the logical choice was to keep everything going as planned with Daniel in the car. They’ll still get to monitor his performance, which they’re clearly keen on doing, and Liam will continue to wait as the next logical seat filler after Daniel like he was already doing. At that point my assumption would be Ricciardo back to Red Bull or out of Alpha Tauri/retired from F1 by the end of next season.
I’m not trying to argue that any of this is the right thing to do, just that it seems to be how Red Bull has chosen to handle the situation.
Not to me, not based on his race performance at McLaren and then at AT before crashing (again: the crash and the resulting injury are his fault).
Liam will continue to wait
That’s how they lost Sainz and Albon…
I’m not trying to argue that any of this is the right thing to do
You argued that “it should be obvious to everyone” why Ricciardo deserves a race seat in F1 and he just doesn’t. He had two seasons at McLaren, including one whole car reset with the 2022 rules. In 2021 he had one very good race but Nyck De Vries also had one very good race.
There is the unlikely but not completely outlandish chance that Lawson will overtake Tsunoda in championship points in the next race weekend. Tsunoda has 3, Lawson has 2.
There is and it should be obvious to everyone. Red Bull want him there. They marketed his “homecoming” while they evaluated him privately and as soon as they felt he was a better choice than Nyck de Vries and their juniors they put him in the car.
They probably had the contract for next year worked up before Liam stepped in, so the logical choice was to keep everything going as planned with Daniel in the car. They’ll still get to monitor his performance, which they’re clearly keen on doing, and Liam will continue to wait as the next logical seat filler after Daniel like he was already doing. At that point my assumption would be Ricciardo back to Red Bull or out of Alpha Tauri/retired from F1 by the end of next season.
I’m not trying to argue that any of this is the right thing to do, just that it seems to be how Red Bull has chosen to handle the situation.
Not to me, not based on his race performance at McLaren and then at AT before crashing (again: the crash and the resulting injury are his fault).
That’s how they lost Sainz and Albon…
You argued that “it should be obvious to everyone” why Ricciardo deserves a race seat in F1 and he just doesn’t. He had two seasons at McLaren, including one whole car reset with the 2022 rules. In 2021 he had one very good race but Nyck De Vries also had one very good race.
There is the unlikely but not completely outlandish chance that Lawson will overtake Tsunoda in championship points in the next race weekend. Tsunoda has 3, Lawson has 2.