Daniel Ricciardo closes in on Red Bull return with Australian tipped to replace under-fire Sergio Perez alongside Max Verstappen next season after ‘remarkable’ Mexican GP performance

Daniel Ricciardo looks set for a return to Red Bull next season after Sergio Perez was given the equivalent of the football manager’s vote of confidence.

33-year-old Perez crashed in the first corner of the Mexican Grand Prix when he went off track due to excessive exuberance and retired in a race won by his teammate Max Verstappen.

Team boss Christian Horner refused to commit to keeping the out-of-form Perez for 2024, despite the Mexican still having a year left on his existing contract.

Although diplomatic about Perez, Horner was particularly complimentary about Ricciardo’s performance at the weekend, calling it ‘remarkable’.

The Australian driver, 34, qualified an impressive fourth for Red Bull’s junior team AlphaTauri and finished seventh, their best result of the year.

The Mexican crashed on Sunday in the opening round of his home Grand Prix

When asked if he would support Perez, Horner responded with reservations. “Yes, he has three races to defend that second place,” he said.

‘There are twenty points between him and Lewis (Hamilton, a strong number two for Mercedes in Mexico).

“He’s had some setbacks and some problems, but we still believe he can do it between now and the end of the year.”

Asked whether finishing second is a requirement to stay with the world championship-winning team, Horner said: ‘It’s not that binary. You have to look at the conditions and so on and Checo (Perez) has an agreement with us for next year and our intention is for him to be in the car in 2024.

“We will give him all the support he needs to ensure he finishes second, but there is no condition that if he does not finish second he will be out of the team.”

On the other hand, Horner waxed lyrical about Ricciardo, who was assigned the AlphaTauri seat before the summer holidays.

He won seven of his eight Grands Prix with Red Bull before moving to Renault in 2019, ahead of a strangely difficult two seasons at McLaren.

Red Bull chief Christian Horner refused to confirm that Perez would join the team next year

Ricciardo finished seventh in Mexico, delivering AlphaTauri’s best result of the season

Horner said: ‘It was great to see Daniel perform so well and it supports our decision to bring him back (from AlphaTauri).

‘I thought he was excellent this weekend, battling a Mercedes in an AlphaTauri, and if it hadn’t been for the red flag he would have finished higher.

‘It was a remarkable achievement from him. He’s back to his old self. He’s relaxed and confident.’

There is an easy solution open to Horner, namely placing Perez at AlphaTauri in place of Ricciardo. That seems the most likely outcome at this point.