F1 pundit claims Daniel Ricciardo has taken over the lead driver spot from Yuki Tsunoda

Ricciardo has had a positive mid-season start with AlphaTauri

F1 pundit claims Daniel Ricciardo has taken over the lead driver spot from Yuki Tsunoda

Ted Kravitz (Credits: PlanetF1), Daniel Ricciardo (Credits: PlanetF1) and Yuki Tsunoda (Credits: Top Gear)

Daniel Ricciardo made his return to F1 in Hungary. He finished P13 in Hungary, two places ahead of his teammate Yuki Tsunoda. He finished P10 in the sprint in Belgium, eight places ahead of Tsunoda. Although Tsunoda starts eight places ahead of Ricciardo on Sunday, British reporter Ted Kravitz claims the balance of power has tilted towards Ricciardo in Alpha Tauri.

Fans have expected Ricciardo to take over from Tsunoda due to their massive difference in experience. When asked about the new Tsunoda-Ricciardo dynamic going on at AlphaTauri, Kravitz said, “I am sorry Yuki but Daniel Ricciardo is clearly the team leader now.”

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Many Tsunoda fans will certainly not be happy with Ted Kravitz’s comments. Seeing that Tsunoda has been giving impressive results for AlphaTauri the whole season, it might still be too early to provide this kind of verdict for the Japanese driver.

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Daniel Ricciardo takes a sly dig at McLaren while claiming he is happy with AlphaTauri

Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren and AlphaTauri
Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren (Credits: Sky Sports) and AlphaTauri (Credits: PlanetF1)

Daniel Ricciardo has seen an unstable nine months. He went from driving for McLaren to being a reserve driver for Red Bull to driving for AlphaTauri. When asked about his current situation, Ricciardo expressed his happiness with AlphaTauri.

He claimed that his new team is very open and lets him do things his way. The Red Bull man said the group heard his opinions and was open to his suggestions in the briefings. The driver didn’t want to talk about McLaren, but he said they were going about things the wrong way back then.

“They just let me do it with my natural driving style. I noticed that they were curious and wanted to hear my opinion in the briefings…but I didn’t want to overload them with 100 things over the first weekend,” said Ricciardo

“I don’t really want to talk about the time at McLaren anymore. But back then, during the first summer break, I realised that we were going about things the wrong way, although obviously everyone was acting in the team’s best interest…. we probably just did too much,” he added

Ricciardo will now be looking to score his first points of the season in Belgium on Sunday. He was unlucky in Hungary due to an early incident with Zhou but still managed to be P13. Although he now starts at P19, it remains to be seen if Ricciardo can still manage to bag some points if not for another unlucky incident.

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