Why Ricciardo was nervous ahead of his return to Red Bull

Daniel Ricciardo was nervous about returning to Red Bull Racing. The Australian was afraid of the opinions of some employees at Red Bull Racing, fuelling rumours of Helmut Marko's doubts.

Ricciardo returned to Red Bull in 2023 after his McLaren deal ended early. The Australian was broke but got the chance to join his old team as a third driver. Ricciardo stepped in for marketing duties but then also crawled into the simulator. During his first time back in the simulator, Ricciardo did feel tense.

"I was nervous because I was stepping back into an environment. Christian [Horner] is very open, but I didn't know how other people at Red Bull felt about me kind of coming back into the family into the team, so I was also a little bit nervous with that," the AlphaTauri driver says in the podcast Beyond the Grid.

Ricciardo afraid of Marko's reaction?

Ricciardo left Red Bull Racing at the end of 2018 to embark on a new adventure at Renault. Horner and also Helmut Marko were surprised by Ricciardo's move at the time, considering the Australian did get a contract that met all his requirements. Marko is, therefore, rumoured to still have reservations about Ricciardo returning to Red Bull Racing in 2025.

"Also I'm not coming off a high. I'm obviously coming off a pretty low season, so I'm walking into the team that's won the championship, so I'm like, are people going to be like, who's this washed-up kid, or are they going to be happy to see me back?"

Ricciardo eventually managed to convince everyone within Red Bull. The Australian found his confidence again after several tests in the simulator and eventually impressed most with a test in the RB19 at Silverstone. There, Ricciardo came very close to Max Verstappen's pole time in his first fast lap, after which Marko picked up the phone to tell Nyck de Vries to leave AlphaTauri.