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REVEALED: Daniel Ricciardo almost joined Alpine for the 2023 F1 season after McLaren desperately tried to sidetrack the Australian driver to mitigate the fallout from Oscar Piastri’s defection
- Daniel Ricciardo, 33, may have joined Alpine
- He followed his brutal exit from McLaren
- He finally signed for Red Bull as a reserve
Seemingly unwanted F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo came close to joining Alpine this season after he passed the requirements at McLaren, reports have reported.
Alpine boss Laurent Rossi seriously considered signing the 33-year-old, who was sacked from McLaren with one year remaining on his contract.
Ricciardo’s move was linked to the fate of fellow Australian driver Oscar Piastri.
Alpine announced the Melbourne-based 21-year-old as a pilot by 2023, only for the young gun to later testify in Twitter He had not signed with the French team.
Before that bombshell, McLaren CEO Zak Brown had approached Alpine with a plan to swap drivers: Piastri to McLaren, Ricciardo to Alpine.
Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo came close to joining Alpine this F1 season after he passed the requirements at McLaren last year.
McLaren released Ricciardo with one year remaining on his contract, with fellow Australian Oscar Piastri (pictured)
The plan was revealed in a soon-to-be-released episode of the F1 documentary series Drive to Survive.
‘I feel like I can help. Let’s shut this down,” Brown told Rossi in a forthcoming episode of Drive to Survive.
“Daniel, I’d love to see him here (Alpine) … but that’s just because I’d love to see him stay in the sport.”
However, the plan did not come to fruition; Piastri joined Red Bull as a racing driver and Ricciardo returned to the same team as a reserve driver.
The American team Haas also showed interest in securing Ricciardo, only to be left out of the hunt.
Also revealed on Drive to Survive, Haas team principal Guenther Steiner told driver Kevin Magnussen that the Australian was out of his price range.
“He (Ricciardo) wants ten fucking million (dollars),” Steiner stated bluntly.
Ricciardo will earn a staggering amount of money in 2023 despite not getting a seat in the race.
His combined package of Red Bull and contract money owed by McLaren was reportedly $24 million.
Rather than sign Ricciardo, Haas secured experienced driver Nico Hulkenberg to fill the seat vacated by Mick Schumacher.
The 2023 F1 season begins with the first race in Bahrain on March 5.