Ricciardo: Red Bull 'the next best place to be'

Daniel Ricciardo says Red Bull is "the next best place to be" after Mercedes after confirming his future at the team.

With Kimi Raikkonen out of contract at the end of the season, Ricciardo has often been linked with a move to Ferrari having failed to win a race with Red Bull since 2014. However, with Red Bull showing improved form this year, Ricciardo's contract has been confirmed as running until the end of the 2018 season.

"The deal with Red Bull was always long term," Ricciardo told the official Formula 1 website. "The only thing that was keeping things a bit open was performance.

"More from my side. But again, if they were doing really bad then I am sure if I had an approach for a winning car then it would have been okay. But at the moment, behind Mercedes it is the next best place to be and I hope that in 2017 we can be as good as Mercedes."

And team principal Christian Horner suggests Red Bull has activated performance-related clauses to retain Ricciardo for the full length of his contract.

"Daniel is under contract," Horner confirmed to Sky Sports. "When Daniel joined Red Bull he had a five-year agreement. We are in year three, leaving two to go.

"Of course, in these contracts are performance-related causes but he's performing pretty well at the moment."

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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.