Stupid mistake forces Daniel Ricciardo’s AlphaTauri F1 team to delete official photo of Aussie star

Formula 1’s AlphaTauri team has been forced into an embarrassing backflip after posting a photo of new recruit Daniel Ricciardo with a blatant mistake.

The Australian joined the team on July 11 after spending the first 11 races of the year as a reserve driver for Red Bull and will make his debut for them at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

But when AlphaTauri posted an official photo of Ricciardo in his new racing kit on social media on Monday, fans pointed out that it was an image of the 34-year-old’s head photoshopped onto the body of the driver he replaced, Nyck De Freeze. .

The team responded by removing the photo just hours after it was posted and replacing it with an unaltered image of the Aussie in their colors.

The team quickly replaced the altered photo with the real photo (photo)

AlphaTauri’s very public fling comes after veteran F1 pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz questioned the mindset of the Perth-born driver, warning he could find life very difficult with the struggling team.

“It’s all nice and nice to point at [Daniel’s] test times in the Red Bull RB19, the class car of the field, but the reality is that Ricciardo is not driving that car,” Kravitz said on the Sky Sports F1 podcast.

“He’s probably driving one of the slowest cars on the grid, if not the slowest, and that’s the AlphaTauri.

“My only question is, not that they shouldn’t have replaced Nyck de Vries – it clearly didn’t work… the surprise is why Daniel Ricciardo would want to get into that car and a car worse than the McLaren he has.” probably left last year.’

Ricciardo impressed when he drove Red Bull’s RB19 at Silverstone (pictured) and signed with AlphaTauri on July 11

The Aussie will drive for his new team for the first time this weekend at the Hungarian Grand Prix

Kravitz was also left puzzled after Ricciardo stated ‘I’m delighted to be back on track with the Red Bull family’ in the press release announcing his move.

I found that quote odd. He can’t even bring himself to say AlphaTauri,” he said.

“There may be some short-term pain [for Ricciardo] if he can’t do it better than de Vries.’

Last Saturday, Ricciardo admitted he needed to ‘fall in love with Formula 1 again’ after two shocking seasons at McLaren and his eight-month break from racing.

“Not falling in love with it anymore took a hit on my confidence,” he said.

“If you’re in a sport where you’re trying to be the best at something, the best in the world at something, then of course you need complete confidence and belief.

‘If that decreases, your pleasure also drops a bit. There are many factors.

“Back to Red Bull, just the reception I had when I came back to that team was a bit overwhelming in a positive way.”