Daniel Ricciardo Signs F1 Contract with Red Bull Racing After Stint with McLaren

Formula One Racing star Daniel Ricciardo is heading back to Red Bull Racing after spending the past two seasons with McLaren.

Red Bull Racing announced the move Wednesday on Twitter, and Ricciardo expressed excitement over returning to his former team:

After splitting his first three F1 seasons between HRT and Scuderia Toro Rosso, Ricciardo was part of Red Bull Racing from 2014 to 2018.

The initial stint at Red Bull Racing yielded the best results of Ricciardo's career, as he finished eighth or better in the points standings in each of his five years with the team.

That included third-place finishes in 2014 and 2016, plus Ricciardo picked up seven of his eight career F1 race wins as a Red Bull Racing member.

After leaving Red Bull Racing at the conclusion of the 2018 campaign, Ricciardo spent two years at Renault and then the next two years at McLaren.

Ricciardo has just one win over the past four seasons combined, and his best points finish was in 2020 with Renault when he came in fifth.

The 33-year-old Aussie did not win a race during the 2022 campaign, and he only mustered an 11th-place finish in the points standings, which was his worst result since finishing 14th as a member of Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2013.

Red Bull Racing easily won the team points title in 2022, as points champion Max Verstappen and third-place finisher Sergio Pérez combined for 17 race wins.

Ricciardo's return to Red Bull Racing will likely do little to cool talk of Pérez potentially leaving the team in the near future.

Per Luke Chillingsworth of Express, a feud began between Verstappen and Perez during the second-to-last race of the 2022 season in Brazil when Verstappen ignored a team request to let Pérez pass him so he could have the advantage over Charles Leclerc for second place in the points standings.

Leclerc ultimately edged out Pérez for second place by three points when he finished second in the season-ending race in Abu Dhabi, while Perez finished third.

Regardless of what happens with Pérez, bringing in an experienced and successful driver like Ricciardo likely ensures that Red Bull Racing will continue to be the dominant team in F1 next season.