AlphaTauri state Red Bull objected Ricciardo mid-season F1 return

AlphaTauri CEO Peter Bayer has revealed that Red Bull wereoriginally opposed to the idea of Daniel Ricciardo making amid-season return last year. Shortly after the British Grand Prix,AlphaTauri announced that Ricciardo would replace Nyck de Vries atthe team. De Vries had been struggling to get up to speed alongsideYuki Tsunoda and was dropped just 10 races into his rookie F1season. Ricciardo returned to Red Bull in a third driver role atthe end of last year after departing McLaren, bringing an end to adifficult two seasons with the Woking-based squad. His role back inthe Red Bull set-up provided a route back to the grid withAlphaTauri - however Red Bull rejected the idea at first.“Originally we were told: No, Daniel is a reserve driver at RedBull and that's how it will stay,” Bayer told motorsport-magazin .“And then, over the course of a month, we kept asking how thingswere going. “At some point, Christian Horner came to us and said:We're doing the test at Silverstone, maybe we'll have a look at it.Then Helmut [Marko] said: Yes, why not?” Ricciardo's impactRicciardo scored a best result of seventh at the Mexico City GrandPrix, with his impact on the team hailed by AlphaTauri. “Why?Daniel has experience, so he can help us with the setup on all thetracks. Daniel is a real reference for Yuki,” Bayer said. “He hasbrought an incredible amount of new energy to the team in just oneweek. Our mechanics were delighted: hey, wow, something'shappening! “The change wasn't easy, but at the end of the day ithad such a positive effect.” Ricciardo will remain with AlphaTaurithis year, once again competing alongside Yuki Tsunoda.