Daniel Ricciardo was recalled to F1 last month, leading many to speculate he is being lined up to replace Sergio Perez – a claim Christian Horner refutes.
Horner firmly denies that Ricciardo replaced Nyck de Vries after the British GP as a means to get him back in a Red Bull car before 2025.
Sergio Perez’s contract with the Austrian sports drink company expires at the end of 2024.
The Mexican has struggled this season and now sits 125 points behind teammate Max Verstappen.
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His on-track woes began at the Monaco Grand Prix in May, where he crashed in qualifying, before placing 16th.
The Monaco GP marked the first of five consecutive weekends that the Red Bull racer failed to qualify in the top ten.
The points difference between Perez and Verstappen led to speculation that the Mexican would face a pay cut from Red Bull.
Things seemed to have taken a turn for the better recently for Perez, who came in second at the Belgian GP.
However, experts still believe that the Mexican racer’s days at Red Bull are numbered.
Many names have been thrown into the hat as potential Perez replacements, and Ricciardo is an interesting one.
He was meant to be having a season off-track as Red Bull’s reserve driver, following two disappointing seasons at McLaren.
However, he was called back into F1 action sooner than expected, replacing Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri following the British GP.
This replacement occurred at the height of Sergio Perez’s problems with Red Bull, as the Mexican placed outside the top five at Silverstone.
However, Horner insists the two events are in no way linked.
The British team principal said: “I was keen to bring Daniel [Ricciardo] back into the fold.
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“We spent the last seven months rebuilding him and getting the old Daniel bank that we recognise from when he was last with us.
“It was always scheduled for him to do that tyre test and that was going to be very much a moment in time just to see where he was at.
“It seemed to make a great deal of sense, and after his performance at the test, it was a no-brainer.”