Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner has admitted the team isn’t prepared to “wait forever” for Daniel Ricciardo to decide his Formula 1 future after 2018.
The Australian is out of contract with the Anglo-Austrian team at the end of next season and it is well-documented that the five-time Grand Prix winner is taking his time to consider alternatives before putting pen to paper.
Though Horner has always made it clear Ricciardo is the preferred choice to partner Max Verstappen until 2020, with the likes of Pierre Gasly and Carlos Sainz potentially waiting for the opportunity he has made it clear the 28-year-old doesn’t hold all the cards.
“I think Daniel knows what our strengths are and hopefully we’ll be in a reasonable position,” he said speaking to Racer. “I think he’s at a stage in his career where he’s wanting to evaluate all of his options, which you can understand.
“The problem is we won’t wait around forever and we’ve got some very good options available to us, but our priority is to try and ensure we find a solution with Daniel.”
The most likely seats away from Red Bull are at Mercedes and Ferrari, where the two Finn’s Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen are also on one-year deals, and though the Milton Keynes outfit made strong progress this season Horner concedes ensuring the team has a championship-contending package is crucial to retaining Ricciardo.
“I get the impression he’ll want to see relative engine performances next year,” the Briton said. “He’s had four years of frustration on that side of things, so I can understand him wanting to see how things are panning out.”
