It was announced on Tuesday that Formula 1 veteran Daniel Ricciardo would be taking Nyck de Vries' spot at Red Bull's sister team AlphaTauri for the rest of the 2023 season, and Red Bull Motorsport Advisor Helmut Marko was blunt about the reasoning for the move, as he usually is.

“We signed Nyck because he performed great at Monza last year,” Helmut Marko said, via Ewan Gale of RN365. “We expected him to be at least equal to his teammate [Yuki Tsunoda], but that wasn't the case. Actually, he was always three-tenths slower. We didn't see any improvement.”

Marko responded to the idea that Nyck de Vries did not get a fair chance at AlphaTauri, running just 10 races in his first full season in Formula 1.

“He is 28 years old, he has a lot of experience and also a lot of knowledge as a test driver in various F1 cars,” Marko said, via Gale. “I don't think you can compare him to a young rookie.”

Marko went on to say that de Vries started the weekend in Baku well, but then crashed, and he said that de Vries never once did a super lap that amazed him or Red Bull. Marko also said that it was not worth waiting two more races for the summer break, as they did not see improvement from de Vries with AlphaTauri.

Daniel Ricciardo's lap times from a tire test in Silverstone were encouraging for Marko and Red Bull, and showed that his pace in the simulator translated to the track.

“His lap time swere competitive on three different tyre sets,” Marko said, via Gale. “If Ricciardo hadn't had the speed, we would have considered something else. But AlphaTauri is not in a good position, last in the constructors' standings, so we have to do something to bring something out.”

It is encouraging that Ricciardo was putting in competitive lap times on three different tire sets.

Marko's hope is that Ricciardo brings a new energy to the team. Ricciardo's hope is that his performance at AlphaTauri makes a return to Red Bull in place of Sergio Perez possible.