Daniel Ricciardo faces the chop from Visa Cash App RB if he doesn’t improve, Eddie Jordan has warned.
Ricciardo is two races into his first full season back with the Red Bull junior team after replacing Nyck de Vries midway through last year.
But Jordan is concerned by what he’s seeing from the Australian in the early stages of 2024.
Ricciardo has lost out to teammate Yuki Tsunoda twice in the qualifying head-to-head.
While he got ahead of the Japanese driver at the Bahrain Grand Prix with the aid of some controversial team orders, he finished a spot behind in Saudi Arabia.
A late spin capped a ‘frustrating’ evening for Ricciardo, who came over the line in 16th place.
Red Bull director Helmut Marko has already warned him that he must find something ‘soon’.
Eddie Jordan sends stern warning to Daniel Ricciardo
Speaking on the Formula For Success podcast, Jordan said Ricciardo hasn’t fully recovered from his woes at McLaren.
The Woking team axed the eight-time Grand Prix winner at the end of the 2022 season in favour of compatriot Oscar Piastri.
Jordan feels he desperately needs to start delivering soon if he’s to keep his seat with RB.
He said: “I’m just worried that the end of the McLaren era was really something that stood out, and I couldn’t see where he’d lost it.
“There’s nothing I’ve seen since then that convinces me that I would want to invest my hard-earned sponsorship cash to keep Daniel.
“He needs a result more than anyone perhaps, and he needs to get it together, because otherwise he is going to be replaced.
“He can understand why he would need to be replaced, because the performance is just not there.”
Liam Lawson waits in the wings
A few weeks ago, Ricciardo seemed a ‘dead-cert’ to replace Sergio Perez at Red Bull in 2025, with the Mexican in the final year of his deal.
But after Perez delivered back-to-back runner-up finishes behind Max Verstappen and Ricciardo endured a rough start, the conversation has now shifted.
All of a sudden, the 34-year-old seems vulnerable, with Liam Lawson lurking in the background.
Lawson impressed during a five-race stint in Ricciardo’s cockpit last year when the former Renault driver broke his hand.
Christian Horner has assured the New Zealander that his time will come, and it could arrive sooner than he thinks if things keep trending in the wrong direction for Ricciardo.
The post ‘I’m just worried’: Eddie Jordan warns 8-time GP winner that he’ll be ‘replaced’ if current slump continues appeared first on F1 Oversteer.