Eye-catching data emerges from Daniel Ricciardo’s Silverstone test – report

Jamie Woodhouse 11 Jul 2023 6:45 PM

Daniel Ricciardo smiling as he arrives at the track. Montreal, Canada. June 2023.

Daniel Ricciardo seemingly made a great impression on Red Bull in his Silverstone tyre test, and a claim from F1 reporter Lawrence Barretto would explain exactly why.

With Ricciardo having taken to the Silverstone track on Tuesday at the wheel of the Red Bull RB19 for Pirelli tyre testing duties, this was an outing which the team had said would allow them to assess where the eight-time F1 race winner truly stands currently for performance.

And it would appear that he still stacks up pretty well, Red Bull having confirmed later that day that Ricciardo will replace Nyck de Vries at Red Bull’s sister team AlphaTauri for the remainder of the F1 2023 season, on loan from Red Bull.

Daniel Ricciardo clocks British GP front-row lap time

Ricciardo has set his sights on an ultimate return to the Red Bull cockpit to mark the ‘fairytale’ end to his F1 career, and the fact that he apparently set a time which would have put him on the front row for the British Grand Prix shows just how much he wants it.

The reveal was made by F1 reporter Lawrence Barretto, who claimed his sources had spilled the beans on just how impressive Ricciardo had been in that Silverstone test in his first outing at the wheel of the RB19.

PlanetF1.com recommends

F1 points all-time rankings: Where do Hamilton, Verstappen and Alonso feature?

Five great F1 career moves: Hamilton to Mercedes, Schumacher to Ferrari and more

It was Red Bull’s two-time World Champion and F1 2023 Championship leader Max Verstappen who set the British GP pole time of a 1:26.720, with McLaren’s Lando Norris 0.241 seconds shy of that as he completed the front row.

“Sources say Ricciardo was impressive in today’s Pirelli tyre test with Red Bull, his first drive in 2023 machinery, and that his best lap would have been good enough for the front row of the grid in Sunday’s British Grand Prix,” Barretto stated.

What is not mentioned is which tyre compound that was set on, with Pirelli having brought the C1, C2 and C3 compounds to Silverstone, meaning there were two more grippy compounds in their range, the C4 and C5, which Ricciardo could have potentially used to clock that lap.

Either way, it was clearly enough to convince Red Bull that Ricciardo is the better option over De Vries in that second AlphaTauri seat for the remainder of the season, with his first outing set to arrive at the upcoming Hungarian Grand Prix.