Daniel Ricciardo believes his options away from Red Bull for 2019 have been improved following Max Verstappen’s decision to extend his contract with the Austrian drinks giant until 2020.
The Australian will have to decide if he wants to continue with the team he joined back in 2014 as his contract at the Milton Keynes outfit comes to an end next year but, for a while, his teammate too was believed to be the subject of interest by both Mercedes and Ferrari amid frustration over the lack of performance and reliability at Red Bull this season.
That changed, however, prior to the US Grand Prix when the 20-year-old determined his future for the next three seasons but whereas some saw that as prioritising the Dutchman over Ricciardo, the 28-year-old instead sees greater opportunity to choose where he wants to race.
“I don’t think it has hurt me in any way, if anything it has made my position a bit stronger. I am sure if Max was on the radar at Ferrari or Mercedes that has removed an opponent in a way,” he said in Mexico.
“Red Bull have expressed they want to keep us as a pairing so it certainly has not hurt me. I can be patient for now and see. I have the start of next season on my side in terms I can see where we are at as well and then play it out. I am not going to pull the trigger on anything early. I can take my time.”
The argument team boss Christian Horner has used to try and keep his current line-up is the risk of becoming a ‘number two’ driver either to Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel but Ricciardo downplays that idea believing it is up to the driver to prove to his team that they deserve to be on equal terms.
“I kind of feel that the performances will always speak for themselves,” the five-time Grand Prix winner said. “It is a bit like if, using Valtteri or Kimi as an example, they are only now helping out Lewis and Seb because they were not strong enough in the championship to be doing anything.
“For sure if Valtteri was ahead of Lewis, Valtteri would not be helping Lewis. If that was the case, performance would speak higher.”
Recently, Ricciardo also spoke of a desire to test himself against Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, having already paired up with Vettel and Verstappen, the newly crowned four-time world champion admitted he too would be open to having the ‘Honey Badger’ as a teammate.
“Daniel is a fantastic driver, it would be a privilege to race against him,” he told Motorsport.com in response. “He’s a great character, he always brings a lot of positivity within his team.
“I think it’s interesting, I think it’s cool, I take the compliment that people say they [want to race against me]. I don’t truly necessarily believe that people want to be up alongside me because that is not always necessarily the best thing for an individual. But in some cases, it could be a really good thing because it can help you grow.
“You look at Daniel, he’s got a great driver in his teammate [Max Verstappen] and to be honest, he has got to really work to outperform him first,” he added. “You’ve always got to beat the person you’re with first before you can look at competing against someone else and beating them, that’s just my personal opinion.”
