Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda are expected to be announced as AlphaTauri teammates for 2024, according to reports, leaving rookie Liam Lawson’s transition to a full-time drive unclear.
ESPN has reported that Red Bull management decided this week to extend Ricciardo’s career into a 14th season. His retention would leave the door open to the Australian rejoining Red Bull Racing in 2025, after the end of Sergio Pérez’s contract with the senior team.
A new contract for Ricciardo would also mean Formula 1 has two full-time Australians on the grid in 2024, alongside Oscar Piastri.
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Tsunoda, who easily dispatched rookie teammate Nyck de Vries in the first half of the year, has also done enough to earn a rare fourth season at Red Bull’s driver development team, having scored all of the team’s points before last weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix.
Tsunoda had been expected to have been confirmed for another year on Thursday at his home Japanese Grand Prix, and though the announcement has been delayed, his cagey response in the press conference left little to the imagination.
“You will see soon,” he said. “You’ll know soon.”
Ricciardo was inducted into AlphaTauri after six months out of the sport following his exit from McLaren at the end of last season.
But his comeback was cut short after just three races by an injury sustained at the Dutch Grand Prix, where he broke his left hand in seven places in a crash during practice.
Ricciardo has impressed Red Bull management in his less than three weekends back in the cockpit and is understood to have the backing of key figures in the senior team, which appears set to result in an extension to his AlphaTauri tenure despite having no fixed date to return to the car.
“Daniel brings definitely more experience and he showed a lot of feedback comparison,” Tsunoda said.
“He definitely can tell more details about how the car is behaving. I think it helps a lot for the engineers, and I think engineers like especially how he talks and how he helps with the development side.
“If the team wants to develop the car more to be competitive, maybe [they should sign] Daniel.
“If they want more results … he has more experience, maybe he can extract results.”
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New Zealander Liam Lawson has substituted for Ricciardo since the Aussie’s injury and has mastered the steep learning curve from development driver to points-scorer.
The 21-year-old had a clean race on debut in the Netherlands after just one wet practice session, a Q2 appearance and 11th in Italy and his first top-10 shootout and maiden points in Singapore last weekend.
His performances have left few unconvinced that he’s deserving of a full-time Formula 1 drive, and Lawson said he would be disappointed not to be on the grid next season after his series of cameo appearances.
“I wouldn’t be happy to go back to being reserve,” he said in Japan ahead of his fourth grand prix. “Obviously I know how hard it is to get into Formula 1 and I understand that can be really, really difficult sometimes, so what will happen will happen.”
Beyond AlphaTauri, Logan Sargeant’s Williams seat is the only spot on the grid not yet under contract for 2024.
Williams is reportedly weighing up its options for the second seat, with Sargeant so far having failed to fire in his rookie campaign.
The scoreless American has finished behind Lawson in the last two races while his teammate, Alex Albon, has been a regular points contender.
Asked about his future with Williams, Sargeant said the team had so far been noncommittal.
“From my side, from my manager and from James [Vowles, team principal] — just keep driving, keep trying to improve on my side,” he said.
“It just hasn’t been clean enough. Even though the pace has been getting better, it’s just important to start delivering that.”
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Lawson has been linked to Sargeant’s seat, but the Kiwi said he didn’t know whether a loan deal to another team could be on the cards.
“I honestly have no idea,” he said, before admitting that talks about his future hadn’t yet started.
“To be honest, there hasn’t been a huge amount of time to discuss future things like that.
“On what’s happened so far, [the feedback] has been pretty positive, but I guess for me it’s best to just keep my head down now and try to keep delivering until things clear up.
“It’s basically just been, ‘Good job and keep doing the same thing’.
“I want to be in Formula 1 and I’m trying to do good things now. I have this chance. I’m trying to do everything I can to show that I can be here. But in terms of all those discussions, I think all those will happen after this weekend.”
Lawson said he’s anticipating this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix to be his last in the AlphaTauri car this year, with Ricciardo targeting a return for the Qatar Grand Prix next fortnight.
“I think that’s a realistic goal, but I have no idea what the chances of that happening or not are,” he said.
The Kiwi’s next and final round in the Super Formula championship takes three weeks after that on the weekend of the Mexico City Grand Prix on 29 October.
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