Daniel Ricciardo is targeting a strong 2024 Belgian GP at Spa as a key factor to stealing Sergio Perez‘s Red Bull seat as he bids to return to the team he dramatically quit at the end of 2018 to join Renault.
The 35-year-old won seven times between 2014-2018 before partnering up with Cyril Abiteboul after he felt Red Bull were shifting their focus towards Max Verstappen, but he has only one once since leaving.
His last victory came at the 2021 Italian GP in one of the few highlights during a terrible two-year stint with McLaren, which ended with him being bought out of his contract as his time in the sport appeared to be coming to a shock end.
But now he’s faced with a sensational opportunity to re-join Red Bull thanks to Perez’s horrific form, which is leaving the team dangerously exposed in the constructors’ championship as well as the drivers’ championship as Verstappen bids to fend off McLaren one-handed.
So, as Ricciardo heads into the Belgian GP at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, he is well aware of the chance to fast-track himself into being partner to the current world champion in the very near future and doesn’t plan to waste it.
“When it comes to these moments, these races are more critical than any other so,” Ricciardo told select media, including Total-Motorsport.com, of joining Red Bull ahead of the 2024 Belgian GP. “Coming into Budapest/Spa there wasn’t anything I’d heard from them [Red Bull].
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“But even just myself, just telling myself that these could be the two most important races in my career and just leave it all out there and do everything I can because obviously going up [to Red Bull] as I said last year, that’s my goal.
“I would love to to return, but there’s also talks of whether I’ll even be here so there is so much to fight for, and I think for that I just really made a point to come to every race prepared and to do what I can, but I just made a point for these two coming up to leave it all out there.”
Sergio Perez’s poor form
Perez started the 2024 F1 season in fine fashion and although victories slipped away, he was doing exactly what Red Bull needed him to do by securing podium finishes to ensure that they continued to edge away from challengers in the constructors’ championship battle.
In the opening five rounds of the season, Perez finished in the top three in all but one of the events and was second in the standings ahead of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz with his 85-point haul helping keep the team ahead of Ferrari.
But since then it’s all gone pear-shaped with one top three finish in the subsequent eight race weekends as the Mexican has picked up just 39 points in a run that has seen him slip down to seventh in the standings, behind Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes and Oscar Piastri’s McLaren.
Additionally, Piastri‘s maiden win means he is now the only driver from the front four teams of who has failed to win a race, and crashes at the Monaco GP, British GP and Hungarian GP continue to sap away at his team’s development budget.
