Ted Kravitz has questioned whether Daniel Ricciardo has made the right move by rejoining AlphaTauri.
The Aussie is back on the Formula 1 grid after spending the first 10 races of the season on the sidelines.
The Red Bull reserve has been loaned to their sister team after the decision to axe Nyck de Vries.
The Dutchman had failed to score a single point with the team in his first 10 races.
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However, Ricciardo may also be seen as a risk given his last season racing in F1, for McLaren, ended in disaster.
After several months on the simulator, Red Bull chief Christian Horner declared Ricciardo had his “mojo” back.
And that was put to the test on Tuesday as he took the RB19 for a spin around Silverstone in a Pirelli tyre test.
Red Bull was impressed with the results and wasted little time before announcing his AlphaTauri move.
However, Sky Sports pit lane reporter Kravitz has pointed out the potential flaw in the team’s logic.
“It’s all well and good basing it on the Red Bull RB19, which is the class of the field, but he’s not driving that car,” he said on the Sky Sports F1 Podcast.
“He’s driving probably one of the slowest cars on the grid, if not the slowest, which is the AlphaTauri.
“The AlphaTauri had some upgrades at Silverstone and they finished further down than they normally do with a non-upgraded car.
“This is not a great AlphaTauri, it’s fair to say. Not to say that they shouldn’t have replaced Nyck de Vries – clearly it wasn’t working – but the surprise is why Daniel Ricciardo would want to go into that car that is worse than the McLaren he left last year, probably.
“That quote from Ricciardo I thought was odd.
“He said ‘I’m stoked to be back on track with the Red Bull family’.
“He can’t even bring himself to say AlphaTauri!
“He doesn’t want to say I’m delighted to drive the AlphaTauri because it’s not a quick car.
“Maybe there’s some longer-term gain in it for Ricciardo because there might well be some short-term pain if he can’t do any better than De Vries.”
Kravitz could be correct about the potential for Ricciardo to shine in the long run, given his desire to get back to racing for the top Red Bull team again at some point in the future.
Sergio Perez has been in wretched form of late and could come under even more pressure if that continues and the Aussie hits the ground running at the sister team.
Asked if he believes the situation points at Ricciardo trying to take Perez’s spot, Kravitz replied: “Yes, it does.
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“I think it makes Sergio Perez check the terms of his contract to see if it’s as leaky as Nyck de Vries’ contract with Red Bull obviously was, and worry about whether Ricciardo is coming back.
“But this whole plan of coming back could be scuppered by being no quicker than Yuki Tsunoda on a not-good AlphaTauri.
“But, certainly, if he is and he can score points on debut and is the driver who can transform a car, then this will be a good deciding value of how much is car and how much is the driver, won’t it?”