Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Ricciardo would consider future after October

Daniel Ricciardo says he would start to consider alternative options to Red Bull after October if the team doesn't secure a new power unit deal.

Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has set a deadline of late October to secure a competitive engine for 2016, otherwise he threatens to quit F1. Ricciardo insists he remains positive over the team's future in the sport, but admits he will think about his future if Mateschitz's deadline passes.

"I haven’t thought about the negative potential outcome of it yet, I’m still pretty positive," Ricciardo said. "It’s good that Dietrich has set a bit of a deadline because we have got to know what we are doing and if we are going with ‘X’ engine then we have got to start designing the car and all the rest of it.

"We can’t wait until Christmas, so we will see in a few more weeks if we get a decision or an outcome. I’m still positive as long as we have still got time on our side.

"It’s not the end of October yet, so I’ll remain positive and if we get to the end of October and nothing has been sorted then I’ll for sure start having my eyes and ears a little bit more open about what else is going on. I think we will get something that is decent enough to convince us to stay in the sport and that means giving us a chance to win."

And Ricciardo says he would be open to using an older specification of Ferrari power unit if it allowed Red Bull to be competitive.

"Depends how good their 2016-spec is! It depends, if it means we are 20bhp less than our competitors then it would put us in much better shape than we are this year [with Renault]. But still, knowing that you are not going to have the best … you’ve got to weigh it up. But I don’t know, it would be better than this year for sure.

"We’ve proved we’ve got a good car and at tracks like Singapore we can be competitive, but it’s just these tracks with the longer straights where we are going to bleed a bit. If we can more consistently fight for podiums, at least that will be a step in the right direction."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.