Daniel Ricciardo Contradicts Christian Horner, Believes Visa Cash App RB Is “Not a Junior Team Anymore”

Christian Horner still sees the rebranded Visa Cash App RB as a junior team. Ever since RB (originally Toro Rosso) joined Formula 1 as a sister team to Red Bull Racing in 2006, they’ve had one major goal. It was to provide Red Bull Junior drivers a proving ground so that they could one day hopefully drive for the main team. The team has since evolved quite a bit, but nothing comes close to the rebranding it has gone through for the 2024 season with big brands like Visa and Cash App coming in as title sponsors. And while Horner believes that the team still has the same job, according to the freshly released Season 6 of Drive To Survive, Daniel Ricciardo doesn’t believe that RB is a junior team anymore.

Ricciardo, along with Yuki Tsunoda, forms the most experienced driver pairing for the RB team ever. It was a strategic move by the team’s owner, Red Bull, to elevate RB’s performance under the new management led by CEO Peter Bayer and team principal Laurent Mekies. But if it were still a junior team as Christian Horner suggested, they could have gone with the exciting young talent of Liam Lawson, who already proved he was ready for Formula 1 last season as a replacement for the Aussie.

Christian Horner and Daniel Ricciardo don’t see eye to eye on RB’s future in F1

Season 6 of ‘Drive To Survive’, one of the most anticipated F1 docuseries, just dropped on Netflix today.

And as always, there are exciting storylines in the first few episodes. One thing that caught my attention was that Horner talked about how he still sees AlphaTauri as just a team to develop Red Bull’s junior drivers.

In episode 2, Christian Horner said, “That winning mentality, I don’t just expect from our Red Bull Racing drivers, but also our junior drivers at AlphaTauri: Yuki Tsunoda, and the new guy Nyck de Vries. AlphaTauri is there to train and develop talent for Red Bull Racing. I look at those drivers as; are they candidates for Red Bull Racing at any point in time? If they’re not, then what’s the point of them being there?”

But we now know that Red Bull had been planning to give a major overhaul to AlphaTauri in 2024. Daniel Ricciardo recently shared his insights into the team’s direction for the future. “I feel like this is not a junior team anymore. And I think with a lot of plans for next year hopefully we can prove that on track and get more points, like the last few races [in 2023],” the Aussie was quoted by us.motorsport.com.

READ MORE: FIA Brings Back AlphaTauri With Historic Partnership After Visa Cash App’s Takeover of RB

Ricciardo is happy about how the team received his feedback

The 8-time Grand Prix winner also expressed his optimism about how well the team has received and acted upon his feedback. He emphasized the importance of their collaborative efforts and highlighted the team’s commitment to using his experience in their plans for the future, to focus on improving performance and scoring more points in the upcoming season.

“I can’t ask for too much more at the moment,” said Ricciardo. “It’s obviously now, just how quickly can we get new parts on the car, and this and that.” Ricciardo also finds the team’s rebuilding phase quite exciting, as he’s been on a similar path himself in the past few years with Renault and McLaren.

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Do you think RB’s major collaboration with Red Bull Racing in 2024 will help the team rise in the ranks of constructors? Share your insights down below in the comments.