Red Bull Reject Alex Albon Gives Daniel Ricciardo Valuable Mental Health Advice Amid F1 Absence: “It Took Me A…”

Daniel Ricciardo spent two years at McLaren and both those years were underwhelming, to say the least. While he scored a win in his first season in Monza, Lando Norris beat him on the overall points tally. 2022 was worse as he did not just go winless throughout the season, but his teammate again beat him on points. Resultantly, the Honey Badger decided to take a year away from regular action in F1. Having been through all of this himself, Alex Albon came out with support for the Australian.

Alex was on a career-high when he earned a promotion from Toro Rosso to Red Bull. Alex replaced Pierre Gasly after the 2019 Hungarian GP and partnered with Max Verstappen until next year. In 2021, Albon stayed on the sidelines, serving the team as a third driver while Sergio Perez replaced him. In 2022, he made a comeback into regular action as a Williams driver.

“I was in a slightly different position,” Albon referred to Ricciardo’s situation while talking with Autosport. “But I can see what he means. When you have bad years in F1, and I can talk about my experience in 2020, it drains you massively, the noise in the paddock and of course, more than anything, your own performances – we’re born to be competitive and hungry for it.”

“That’s what we live on. It’s all about performance. It’s all about doing a good job. So yeah, it’s very heavy, and I think it took me a couple of weeks to kind of get through the emotional impact of missing out on a seat.”

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While Ricciardo takes a year’s hiatus to realize his love for the sport once again, his agents are looking to land him a role on TV. As he opted for the Red Bull 3rd driver role, some believed it was a pressure tactic by the team for Sergio Perez.

Helmut Marko assures Sergio Perez against the Daniel Ricciardo threat

Red Bull had a phenomenal season, winning 17 races out of the total 22 fixtures. While Perez was responsible for only 2 of those wins, his contribution to helping the team win the constructors’ championship was massive. He scored 305 of the team’s total of 759 points. Checo is currently on a contract that will run until the end of 2024, but Ricciardo’s arrival was seen as a threat to his seat.

Speaking with ServusTV recently, Helmut Marko said, “No. Sergio Perez has shown that he can ride at a very high level.”

“If Max is never there, Sergio will be. He won two races this year for a reason.”

Speaking on Ricciardo’s role in the team, Marko told, “This is also important, and if he has to replace one of our drivers he will. Then we will have a driver who we know will take the car to the finish line. But I repeat, it’s not that we want to put pressure on Sergio on this.”

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Ricciardo has earlier talked about making a stronger comeback in 2024. Fans will hope for just that to happen, as they will miss his contagious smile in 2023.