Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Ricciardo wary of looking outside Red Bull for 2017

Daniel Ricciardo says he is wary of considering a move away from Red Bull in the future in case he doesn't perform well this season.

The Australian was hugely impressive during his debut season with Red Bull, taking three race victories and finishing third in the drivers' championship ahead of team-mate Sebastian Vettel. However, Red Bull struggled last year and failed to win a race, with Ricciardo being beaten by Vettel's replacement Daniil Kvyat.

With a number of drivers out of contract at the end of 2016 - including Nico Rosberg, Kimi Raikkonen and Jenson Button - there could be a lot of movement in the driver market but Ricciardo is wary of considering alternative plans away from Red Bull.

"I’m not looking forwards yet," Ricciardo said. "I don’t tend to look too far ahead anyway as a lot of things can happen. I definitely want to get the season started and make sure I start on the right foot and get myself where I need to be and then as the season reaches the mid-point you can start thinking about 2017 and all the rest of it."

Following contrasting seasons with Red Bull, Ricciardo says the disappointment of last year has made him a more complete driver which he hopes to show in 2016.

"My two years with Red Bull have been pretty different. I’ve rated highs and lows, seen morale of the team swing. We’ve gone through quite a bit together, and now we have some good stability, I’ve got the same engineers and I think this year can be a very good one for us so yeah I’m excited.

"I’m not going to be too excited but I’m definitely excited. I see myself as a pretty complete driver now. I don’t want to be naive. I can always learn and keep evolving. I think I’m prepared for the situation. I just want to race, I want to get that competition out of me and start battling."

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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.