Daniel Ricciardo only had one answer in mind when Red Bull taskmaster offered him the AlphaTauri F1 lifeline

Daniel Ricciardo revealed how he felt when Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko called to offer him the AlphaTauri F1 seat. The Austrian-British team recently announced that the Australian driver will be going on loan to AlphaTauri and will replace rookie Nyck de Vries, who was struggling to perform in F1.

Speaking in an exclusive interview on the F1 YouTube channel, Lawrence Barretto asked Daniel Ricciardo how he felt when he saw the call from Helmut Marko on his phone. The Australian driver talked about the nervousness that he felt during that time and said:

"Well... I was like, 'Okay, let's just hear what he has to say.' I think that is probably the best thing to do... sometimes, you try to prepare yourself, like, what if he asks me this, what if he... Let's just hear him out, and see what happens. Yeah, I was like, 'Okay.'"

Daniel Ricciardo went on to explain how he is accustomed to getting these kinds of extremely important phone calls from Dr. Marko and team principal Christian Horner after being with the Red Bull family for so long and. He said:

"I did not really need to think much about it, you know, in terms of... I think as well being back in this family I feel so much... yeah, I feel like I'm kind of just going through it all again."

"And these were the calls that, you know, I used to get, and this was kind of the moments that used to kind of thrown in front of us. So, there was no question that I was going to say yes, it was just, yeah I guess the reality of 'okay it is going to happen pretty soon.'"

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AlphaTauri team principal is delighted to have Daniel Ricciardo on board

AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost was delighted to welcome Daniel Ricciardo to the team. Ricciardo had previously joined the team a decade ago when he was first coming up the ranks in F1.

Tost praised Ricciardo for being a multiple race winner and spoke how he will integrate well into the team since he has worked there before. F1 quoted Tost as saying:

"I’m very pleased to welcome Daniel back into the team. There’s no doubt about his driving skills, and he already knows many of us, so his integration will be easy and straight-forward."

"The team will also profit a lot from his experience, as he is an eight-time Formula 1 Grand Prix winner. I would like to thank Nyck for his valuable contribution during his time with Scuderia AlphaTauri and I wish him all the best for the future."

The Honey Badger will return to the grid at the 2023 F1 Hungarian GP.