Christian Horner does not see “age as a barrier” for Daniel Ricciardo in his bid to fight for Red Bull’s 2025 F1 seat

Christian Horner is confident that Daniel Ricciardo could serve as Red Bull's driver in 2025 because age is not an issue for his caliber.

The Australian driver returned to the team this season after his contract with McLaren was terminated early because of his performances with the team. He got in as Red Bull's reserve drive, opening up opportunities for him.

Recently, when AlphaTauri fired Nyck de Vries because of his poor performance, Ricciardo was chosen as his replacement for the rest of the season.

While it seems unlikely that he would be back in the Red Bull seat as their permanent driver, Horner feels that at least his age, which will be 36 in 2025, would not be an issue. Speedcafe quoted him:

"I don’t see age as a barrier."

Daniel Ricciardo partnered Max Verstappen before he left the team to join Renault at the time. He was then replaced by multiple drivers but the longest and best-performing stint has been with Sergio Perez. He joined the team in 2021 and has been a very decent driver, bringing in multiple wins.

He currently stands second in the world championship but has had a few bad race weekends. He seems to be making a recovery with regular podiums which have again started to follow.

Horner mentioned that if Perez continues to deliver he would be with the team, but if not, for whatever reason, there are many other drivers in line to drive for Red Bull.

"If Checo delivers, we’ll keep going with Checo. If he doesn’t, for whatever reason, then it’s… but that won’t be just restricted to AlphaTauri drivers, because there’s an awful lot of drivers up and down the pit lane that would like to drive a Red Bull car," Horner said (via Speedcafe).

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Red Bull advisor feels Daniel Ricciardo has motivated AlphaTauri

AlphaTauri has been rather weak this season, scoring only three points, all of which are from Yuki Tsunoda. Nyck de Vries was replaced by Daniel Ricciardo because of his weak performance, but the latter hasn't scored a point either in the two races he had with the team.

However, Red Bull advisor Dr. Helmut Marko doesn't seem to be very worried about this fact. He mentioned that Ricciardo has managed to motivate AlphaTauri in their current state, which is a very positive factor. PlanetF1 quoted Marko:

"The change has had a very positive effect, in terms of mood and motivation in the AlphaTauri team."

He added that his performance has been better than De Vries in following up Tsunoda, and has been rather at par with the Japanese driver in the two races. Perhaps this could promise better results from Daniel Ricciardo.

"While the gap of De Vries was on average three to five tenths, Ricciardo, if you adjust for all that, is significantly less, if not on par with Tsunoda," Marko added.