Helmut Marko not pleased with Daniel Ricciardo’s AlphaTauri outing, says the Australian is ‘still lacking’

Daniel Ricciardo had a mixed FP1 and FP2 sessions at the Hungaroring.

Helmut Marko not pleased with Daniel Ricciardo’s AlphaTauri outing, says the Australian is ‘still lacking’

Helmut Marko and Daniel Ricciardo (Credits: Planet F1)

Helmut Marko, the Red Bull team adviser, has, after the Friday practice sessions, made it known that Daniel Ricciardo is lacking a bit of everything in comparison to Yuki Tsunoda after his initial AlphaTauri runs. Ricciardo drove the AT04 for the first time at the Hangaroring yesterday and was way off the pace set by his teammate.

Helmut Marko believes that Daniel Ricciardo is still settling into his new role with the Faenza-based team and will take some time to get up to speed with everything. Moreover, AT04 has proved one of the hardest beasts to tame during the 2023 Formula 1 season. de Vries’s exit from the team was mainly because of this reason.

Yuki Tsunoda ended his Free Practice 2 session in a respectable P4, whereas his Australian teammate only managed a P14 finish.

FS Video
He did okay. In the long runs, he was closer [to Tsunoda] but in the short runs, it was still lacking a bit.
Marko told racingnews365

Looking at the comments of the 80-year-old veteran of the sport, it seems AlphaTauri is not too worried about the pace the former eight-time Grand Prix winner showed on Friday. They believe that while Ricciardo is lacking a bit in comparison to Tsunoda, he is not too far and would most probably deliver the goods soon.

Helmut Marko’s take on Red Bull’s peculiar outing on Friday

While Helmut Marko was keeping close tabs on Daniel Ricciardo’s outing during the Friday practice sessions, being the advisor of Red Bull, he was also very interested in the exploits of Max Verstappen and Co. The outfit had a pretty peculiar outing yesterday where neither of the Milton-Keynes-based team’s drivers were seen troubling the top runners.

Sergio Perez and Helmut Marko (C
Sergio Perez and Helmut Marko (Credits: vnexplorer.net)
In the long run, we were clearly the fastest, it was very encouraging but it was not as convincing as it normally is. On a single lap, we still have to improve something and we were not fast enough, we have to fight for it more. We have another practice session, and I hope we can solve our problems there.
While shedding light on the same, Marko added.

Red Bull has won all ten races so far in the 2023 F1 season, and despite their baffling Friday outing, they are the favorites to triumph in tomorrow’s all-important Hungarian Grand Prix. The upcoming qualifying session for the race will be extremely crucial for the Red Bull drivers if they are to continue their winning run.

In case you missed it: