Formula 1 is now seeing the ‘best’ version of Daniel Ricciardo, Visa Cash App RB team principal Laurent Mekies says.
Ricciardo has just begun his first full season with the team after replacing the axed Nyck de Vries midway through 2023.
Despite his struggles at McLaren, Mekies believes Ricciardo has now reached his highest level since entering the sport in 2021.
This is the Australian’s second stint with the Red Bull sister team after he initially drove there in 2012 and 2013.
From there, he moved to the senior outfit, where he won seven Grands Prix and claimed 29 of his 32 career podiums to date.
Ricciardo left Red Bull to join Renault in 2019, a move that backfired as he scored just two top-three finishes in two seasons.
Carlos Sainz’s move to Ferrari then opened the door for him to join McLaren, but he was comprehensively out-performed by Lando Norris.
He won the 2021 Italian Grand Prix but finished four places and 85 points behind Norris the following year.
McLaren subsequently hired his compatriot Oscar Piastri to leave him without a race seat for 2023, before Christian Horner and Red Bull handed him a lifeline.
Laurent Mekies hails ‘gamechanger’ Daniel Ricciardo
Speaking on the Beyond The Grid podcast, new RB team principal Mekies says he feels ‘lucky’ to work alongside a driver of Ricciardo’s calibre.
After a ‘rough patch’ at McLaren, he’s now said to be more motivated than ever to lead the new project at Faenza.
“The Daniel you see in the car is the Daniel that you see fighting for the very top positions,” he said (18:20). “For whatever reasons, I’m lucky enough to have in our team right now a race-winning guy.
“The Daniel we have now is the best Daniel we have seen. Of course he has a rough patch in the last few years, but ironically it’s probably putting him now in the best mindset, in the best spirit with the best energy.
“He has these incredible technical sensitivities. He’s buying into the project like he’s living Visa Cash App RB with us. He’s proud of the colours. He’s pushing us with all the positivity that we all know about him.
“I think, in the start of a project like that, having a guy like Daniel, who is driving the car, is just a gamechanger.”
Ricciardo may have eyes on Red Bull seat
With Sergio Perez approaching the end of his contract, Ricciardo may be hoping for a return to Red Bull in 2025.
Perez completed a one-two behind Max Verstappen in Bahrain but the gap between the two drivers at the finish line was more than 22 seconds.
Channel 4 pundit David Coulthard says that won’t be ‘enough’ for the Mexican to keep his drive, while BBC F1 commentator Harry Benjamin has warned he’s already in ‘worrying territory’.
Ricciardo wasn’t able to impress in the RB either, though, as he endured a largely ‘painful’ race.
In a somewhat messy start to a new era at the team, he narrowly avoided a collision with teammate Yuki Tsunoda on the cooldown lap.
This came after the team ordered Tsunoda to let Ricciardo past so that he could attack the Haas of Kevin Magnussen.
Both drivers will enjoy an upgrade package as they look to score their first points of the campaign in Saudi Arabia this weekend.
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