Brundle: High risk for Ricciardo, he must beat Tsunoda

Much has been written about this turn of events. Firstly, De Vries proved everyone in Formula 1 wrong. There is not a soul, who knew of De Vries' illustrious pre-F1 career plus his 'Star is Born' 2022 Italian Grand Prix which ultimately landed him a long overdue ride in the top flight.

Half a year on since he signed into Red Bull's driver programme, replacing Alpine-bound Pierre Gasly at AlphaTauri. In ten races the 28-year-old De Vries did not impress his paymasters who reasoned "the speed isn't there" when it mattered. Also being trounced by erratic, and yet to fully prove himself, teammate Yuki Tsunoda did the Dutchman no favours. He was expected to beat him soundly.

With Ricciardo looming in the wings, since he got the boot from McLaren, it was inevitable that if any of the four drivers in the Bullpen slipped up, the team's prodigal son was itching to get back to where many believe he still belongs. On the F1 grid.

But the first order of business for the 34-year-old Australian is to beat his new 23-year-old Japanese teammate, which is where Sky F1 pundit and former F1 driver Brundle weighed in: "It's high risk for Daniel in what is probably the slowest car on the grid. He must beat Tsunoda, he's absolutely got to. He needs to edge him in qualy and in the races, that's an absolute given as an expectation. Maybe he can outperform that car."

"If he can massively outperform that car and get it somewhere near the top 10 and keep it there in the race, then maybe it will be his salvation in that respect. I'm really pleased to see him back, but just my honest reaction was: Wow. Daniel's going to do that, is he? It surprised me," admitted Brundle.

"Quite clearly, the fact he was in the car in the first place tells you all you need to. Why was he in it otherwise? They've not exactly hidden the fact that they were getting to the end of the line with De Vries," added the F1 pundit.

Ricciardo, a veteran of 232 starts, seized the moment when offered a test in the dominant Red Bull RB19, after the 2023 British Grand Prix, but Brundle does not think that was the trigger to get Dan back on the grid: "You can do your time all day long on a track that's rubbered in from the Grand Prix, it's not representative. I can't believe that's what made their mind up."

Ricciardo suffered the ignominy of being replaced by a rookie for this season by McLaren. The Woking outfit paid the driver to depart a year earlier so as to accommodate their new sensation Oscar Piastri alongside Lando Norris. The young Englishman basically putting an early end to the big smiling Aussie's career in F1.

Until, of course, Red Bull took sympathy in their former driver, signed him as reserve and now we have what we have: A return to the top flight. But will that see the return of the Ricciardo of old, the 'send-it-from-nowhere' guy, that F1 fans loved

Brundle reckoned: "Daniel's always talked about he's lost his mojo and he needs to get his enthusiasm back, and so I didn't think he'd take that, unless there's another deal that goes with it, a 'you do this and then down the road we'll do that'.

"I'm sure he's had six months of SIM work and not being a Formula 1 driver and that will have hit him very hard. And so I can fully understand the attraction of being one of the 20 on the grid. My overriding feeling here is Formula 1 feels a better place when Daniel Ricciardo's on the grid, and I hated seeing him having to loiter around all weekend," concluded Brundle.

Time will tell if Dan is back on the F1 grid for good (or at least another couple of years) but his harsh reality is that from day one, FP1, Q1, Race 1 of his comeback with AlphaTauri, Ricciardo better start beating Tsunoda every time possible. More so in Qualifying and the Grand Prix, starting when they share a garage for the first time in Hungary, two weekends from now.