Ricciardo Dismisses Ferrari Rumours

Earlier, it had been reported that Daniel Ricciardo had signed a pre-contract option with Ferrari. In response to the Ferrari rumours, Red Bull issued an ultimatum to Ricciardo. Now, the Australian insists that he has only spoken to Red Bull about his Formula 1 future.

Ricciardo had a strong start to his campaign and won the Chinese GP as a bonus. Now, he’s been flung into the centre of the 2019 F1 driver market situation, with rivals Ferrari and Mercedes after his signature.

But after recent reports claiming he had signed some form of pre-contract option with Ferrari to exclusively only deal with it for a set period, Ricciardo has categorically stated that is not the case.

“That is not true. I can say that,” he said in Baku. “I’ve only had talks with Red Bull.

“Even already last year we have been pretty open with each other and through the media as well they say they are interested in keeping me. We have had some talks regarding this.

“I am aware of other reports, but there hasn’t been anything else. They are not true. At least not up until now. Certainly not.”

Ricciardo was firm in his stance of wanting a championship winning car in 2019. Following suggestions that Ferrari were focused solely around Sebastian Vettel, Ricciardo said that was not willing to play second fiddle to anyone else.

“I wouldn’t want to go somewhere where I didn’t feel I had a chance,” he said.

“If someone said, ‘we will let you here but you can’t do this’, that is not an attractive option to me.

“Is that the case somewhere? I honestly don’t know what is going on with other teams.

“At Red Bull there has always been really good clarity and fairness since 2014, since I have been there, so that has been certainly a nice environment and I would expect that environment everywhere.”

He reckoned that the summer break is the perfect time to take a call on his future.

“I guess I don’t really fear not having a seat next year so I don’t feel I need to sign something tomorrow or I have nothing,” he said.

“So for that reason I feel I can wait until the summer. I don’t feel I need to push anything until then.”