Damon Hill claims “distracted” Daniel Ricciardo doesn’t have enough motivation to get back from a performance slump 

Daniel Ricciardo has failed miserably to give decent performances in the first three races of the 2024 F1 season. The Australian is finding it difficult to get out of his driving slump. To make things more difficult, his 23-year-old teammate, Yuki Tsnunoda scored points for the team during the Australian GP. 

Daniel Ricciardo has been falling behind, in qualifying and during the race as well. The team has reportedly given him an ultimatum, which adds more pressure on the honey badger.

According to Damon Hill, perhaps the Aussi has lost all his motivation.

Daniel has already had a whole career behind him. He is already 34, maybe he is already a bit distracted. It is very difficult to motivate yourself again when you see what else there is to see.

Damon Hill via : F1Nation podcast

At any cost, Ricciardo will have to pull up his socks if he does not wish for history to repeat itself. Red Bull likes to keep only those drivers who perform well on a consistent basis. If Ricciardo fails to bring in points for the team in the upcoming races, they might eventually replace him with their reserve driver, Liam Lawson. 

Helmut Marko believes Yuki Tsunoda is clearly faster than Daniel Ricciardo 

As mentioned earlier, Daniel Ricciardo’s poor performance is putting him in a tough position. Ricciardo is struggling to get on top of the VCARB 01, but he has to pull it together as it has been forecasting a negative light on him. His teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, however, is improving continuously.

Helmut Marko recently took the time to dwell on VCARB’s current driver situation.

We're all puzzling about that. He's generally slower than Yuki. Something never goes right with him. Which is surprising, because we saw it in the winter test Very good for him. But at the moment Yuki is clearly the faster one.

Helmut Marko told : laola1

Ahead of the Japanese GP, Tsunoda is preparing well for his home race. The Suzuka event is always special, and Tsunoda will try his best to bring in points for the team. However, this complicates things for his teammate Ricciardo who is yet to score. The 34-year-old will have to improve his game if he is targeting the Red Bull seat for next year. 

In case you missed it:

• Helmut Marko breaks silence on rumors around Carlos Sainz returning to Red Bull
• Max Verstappen’s chief mechanic set to ditch Red Bull for “the other end of the pit-lane”

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