There’s a lot here Red Bull fans out there, and, a lot of old fans who may have buried every piece of Red Bull’s outfit in disappointment after how the past two Formula 1 seasons ended (look at you Max Verstappen and Christian Horner). But there’s a ray of sunshine in this year’s Red Bull garage: Daniel Ricciardo. The The Australian F1 driver returns for the iconic energy drink team for 2023. Unfortunately, his grin will be behind the scenes as Team A’s test driver. However, with Ricciardo returning to Red Bull, it seems the team decided to take advantage of the sport’s most engaging and friendly racer, and bring him back on camera to driving an old Red Bull F1 car through the Outback in his native Australia.
You can’t help but smile at this head shot of Ricciardo bobbing inside the cockpit of an old RB7 — the car Sebastien Vettel drove to the World Championships with Red Bull in 2011, the screaming V8 when Ricciardo made it to the semi-finals. Cut off Ricciardo’s grin ahead and focus on a tractor as he’s on a video conference call with the team on a mission that looks like a mission control out of a spy movie spies.
Ricciardo’s mission was to test the RB7 by flying it across mainland Australia. I’m not sure how this will help the team in the upcoming race weekend, as this car is completely different from the F1 car of today and has been for more than a decade. But we’ll skip this plot a bit in defense of the ruse.
Along with Ricciardo’s Outback tour, he explores dusty desert landscapes and winds along scenic coastal roads — challenging Red Bull riders along the way, including racers Australian Daniel Sanders, aerobatic pilot Matt Hall and New Zealand V8 Supercar racer Shane Van Gisbergen.
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(There’s also quite the nod to Top Gun during the airplane race. We’ll allow it.)
While seeing Ricciardo return to Red Bull this year was a little disheartening for fans, this video might help folks warm up to the idea. Most F1 teams just don’t seem to know how to take advantage of Ricciardo’s goofy personality like Red Bull does, and that’s a darn shame.
Ricciardo may not be one of the 20 drivers on the grid this 2023 F1 season, but we’re glad to still have him in the paddock in some capacity. Hopefully we’ll see a few more fun stunts like this in the meantime.
