Under-pressure Daniel Ricciardo out to earn another F1 season with Red Bull

Daniel Ricciardo says he wants to earn his seat in Formula One with Red Bull-owned RB next season and feels that his eighth place in Canada last time out has helped his cause.

The Italy-based team have already confirmed Japan’s Yuki Tsunoda for 2025 but have yet to say who will take the second seat, with New Zealand reserve driver Liam Lawson also in the reckoning.

The 34-year-old Australian Ricciardo is an eight-time grand prix winner but has been outscored by Tsunoda over the nine races so far this season.

The race in Montreal was Ricciardo’s first top-10 finish of the campaign whereas Tsunoda has had five so far.

“I needed a result like that,” Ricciardo, who started his comeback with RB last season after leaving McLaren in 2022, told reporters on Thursday ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya.

“Now that I’m back in that Red Bull family...I really don’t see myself anywhere else. So that’s where I’d love to stay and continue.

“I obviously want to earn it. I don’t just want it to be like, ‘Yeah, yeah. OK. Stay another year’. I obviously want to be here because I know that I still belong here and can do performances like I did last week.”

Ricciardo had faced criticism from retired 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve before qualifying fifth in Canada, with the Canadian questioning why he was still there.

“We’re hearing the same thing for the last five years. ‘We have to make the car better for him, poor him’. No. You’re in F1. If you can’t cut it, go home. There’ll be someone else to take your place,” Villeneuve said on Sky Sports television.

“I think his image has kept him in F1 more than his actual results.”