Ted Kravitz has claimed that Daniel Ricciardo's reaction to signing on with AlphaTauri for the rest of the season was 'odd'.
The beloved Aussie's return to the F1 grid was confirmed on Tuesday afternoon after leaks hit the media that Nyck de Vries had been sacked by Helmut Marko.
Ricciardo's return to F1 came off the back of a reportedly impressive performance at the recent Pirelli tyre test with Red Bull using his pace as a reason to oust De Vries.
The Dutch driver's AlphaTauri career only spanned ten races in the end with Ricciardo hoping to use this opportunity to seal a full-time return to the Red Bull setup.
h2>Kravitz: Ricciardo has his sights on Red Bull
“That quote from Ricciardo? I thought it was odd," Kravitz claimed on the Sky Sports F1 podcast.
“He said ‘I’m stoked to be back on track with the Red Bull family’. He can’t even bring himself to say AlphaTauri!
“He doesn’t want to say ‘I am delighted to drive the AlphaTauri’, maybe because it’s not a great car.”
Kravitz then explained that he understood the reasoning behind letting De Vries go in order to bring Ricciardo back.
“Not to say that they shouldn’t have replaced Nyck de Vries. Clearly, it wasn’t working. But the surprise is why Daniel Ricciardo would want to go in to that car. A car that is worse than the McLaren he left last year!
“Maybe there’s some longer-term gain in it for Ricciardo. Because there might well be some short-term pain if he can’t do any better than De Vries.”