'Red Bull had to replace Ricciardo for their sake'

Daniel Ricciardo replaced Nyck de Vries in 2023 at the Faenza-based team (at the time called AlphaTauri), in order to earn his place at Red Bull. However, the Australian failed to capitalise on this chance, and even during the team's summer break re-evaluation, Sergio Perez was confirmed to remain at the senior team.

Not only failing to get promoted, but Anthony Davidson also named a different reason for why Ricciardo was let go, namely, his injury at the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix, after which the team gave Liam Lawson the chance to compete at his first F1 Grands Prix. "That moment was really pivotal to Daniel's future at the team and his existence in Formula 1 as a whole, because it allowed a young driver hungry, snapping at his heels that chance to get behind the wheel," he said in Sky Sports F1 Podcast.

Better decision for Red Bull

According to the former driver turned analyst, it was a decision Red Bull Racing had to make. "Since then he [Lawson] has probably been pestering Helmut Marko, pestering: 'See the job I did, I can do better than that, put me back in the car, otherwise I'm off'."

"If it wasn't him moving aside now for Lawson, I fear that they, well, for their sake, they would have lost him. They would have lost Lawson to another team, maybe Audi, who knows. But it is somebody he needed to go somewhere and I think Red Bull could sense that," Davidson added.

In 2023, Lawson competed in five Grands Prix, scoring two points at the Singapore Grand Prix. The driver from New Zealand will not have an easy task after the autumn break at COTA, because it is believed he will receive a 10-place grid penalty for a change of engine components.

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