The shock announcement that Red Bull F1 Racing driver Daniel Ricciardo is heading to the Renault F1 factory team for the 2019 season will be good for Brendon Hartley’s long term future in F1.
The Australian’s departure from Red Bull is sudden as he was expected to re-sign with his current team. Well it made sense!
For 2019 he will partner with current Renault driver German Nico Hulkenberg. The means that Carlos Sainz Jr, who is on loan to Renault from Red Bull will leave the French squad.
F1 reporter Joe Saward sees it as a logical move for Ricciardo as “it will put him in a factory team, which is fast developing, where he will presumably partner Nico Hulkenberg. This means that Carlos Sainz will be on his way to McLaren and that Esteban Ocon will have to stay at Force India”
So what of the ramifications for Hartley?
If Saward is correct, that Sainz will head to McLaren then the logical move for Red Bull would be to promote Brendon Hartley’s Toro Rosso team mate Pierre Gasly, who has been by far the quickest of the two.
Scott Mitchell in Autosport.com this morning writes,
“Gasly staying at Toro Rosso for another year would not be terrible for his development but promoting him to Red Bull to replace Ricciardo would represent Sainz heading for the last-chance saloon and likely seeking refuge at the junior team he left last year. It may also offer Hartley a stay of execution.
If Gasly goes, and the “crazy but fast” (in Marko’s words) Dan Ticktum does not qualify for a superlicence at the end of the year, Hartley would be Red Bull’s only option within its pool of drivers for the second Toro Rosso seat.
It could look outside that pool, of course. Red Bull has already made an approach this year for Lando Norris, the McLaren reserve driver whose grand prix graduation is far from assured.
Norris may be facing a year on the sidelines, but McLaren is currently trying to extract James Key from his contract early so he can start as the new technical director at Woking. Could, or would, Norris be used as a makeweight?”
Well don’t count on Ticktum getting enough Super Licence points as our Marcus Armstrong is like to beat him to it in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship!
What we know is that in F1 nothing is certain, at times it is not logical, that money counts and now Ricciardo will be a Renault driver. It just got more interesting.
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