Daniel-RIccardo-sportstiger

Picture Credit: Twitter

Australian F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo’s struggles at McLaren continued at the Imola Grand Prix as he bumped into Scuderia Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz in the opening lap, which ended his race. Considering his prolonged struggles, reports suggest that the British racing is looking at their testing driver to replace the Australian. 

As reported by one of the F1 journalist, McLaren is looking at American driver Colton Herta. The 22-year-old has been a top performer in IndyCar and has been in the good books of Zak Brown. 

The media personnel wrote, “Australians are pretty excited about F1 at the moment, although Daniel Ricciardo seems a little lost at McLaren and there continue to be rumours that in 2024 (if not earlier) Daniel will be replaced by Colton Herta, the American who Zak Brown believes could open the gates of Formula 1 to corporate America.”

“We will have to see if Herta has everything needed to be an F1 star, but he seems to have the speed, whether he can go on being a drummer in a rock band called Zibs in his spare time remains to be seen, as F1 is a fulltime job.”

“Lap 1 incidents are the worst, especially when you keep going,” Ricciardo

After the Imola Grand Prix, Ricciardo apologised to his former teammate Carlos Sainz as he said, “I think I got onto the kerb just to try and buy myself a bit more space because I know at some point it’s going to bottle up. But I think once I got on the kerb, I just slid off it and then started to slide up into him."

“Obviously intentions were, in a way, good to try and, let’s say, leave some room. But in those conditions, obviously, I didn’t have the grip I was hopeful for, slid up into him and ruined his race as well. Obviously not the way I wanted Sunday to go. A painful one and obviously not the way I want to affect someone else’s race,” he continued. 

“[I'll] just try and move on for Miami”, Riccardo concluded at the end.