Marko brutally underlines Ricciardo F1 exit reasons after 'stopover' failure

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has delivered a withering appraisal of why Daniel Ricciardo was axed after spending just a year on the F1 comeback trail.

Ricciardo was told ahead of the recent Singapore Grand Prix that his services were no longer required at RB, and then released a few days after the race, with Liam Lawson stepping in for the Australian for the final six grands prix of this season.

Ricciardo competed in 25 grands prix overall with AlphaTauri/RB after being handed a second chance in F1 following his departure from McLaren at the end of 2022.

According to Marko, it was meant to be a "stopover" for Ricciardo en route to returning to Red Bull where he won seven of his eight grands prix during his five years with the team between 2014 and 2018.

Instead, Marko feels Ricciardo failed miserably, other than on a couple of occasions, providing a brutal summation of why the 35-year-old was let go.

"He was given a second chance that no one else would have given him," said Marko, via his Speedweek column. "And that was under the premise that a return to Red Bull Racing was possible if he performed well enough.

"The Racing Bulls team was always intended as a stopover. But the necessary performance only came twice - once with a fourth place in the sprint in Miami this year and last year in Mexico.

"But, otherwise, the speed was not there, and the consistency was not there either. The performance that would have justified a promotion to Red Bull Racing was missing. And that was the whole point of the entire thing.

"If we knew why the performance wasn't as good as it should be, we would have done everything we could to change it.

"But the same killer instinct was no longer there. He was famous for his uncompromising overtaking, braking at the last point. But that was no longer the case either."