Red Bull's controversial history of driver swaps - will Ricciardo be next?

Formula 1 has barely got the 2024 season underway, yet an all-too-familiar Red Bull storyline is emerging.

Yes, Max Verstappen look unrivalled to take another world championship, but the plot I'm referring to predates the dominant Dutchman's title-winning ways by some margin.

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Verstappen is part of this story's fabric and may even hint at how 2024's version of events may play out.

I am, of course, talking about the embodiment of internet hot takes, Helmut Marko, and his unwillingness to suffer fools.

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Helmut Marko speaks out

Marko is a wonderful gift to F1 journalists, thanks to the Austrian's lack of filter when expressing his thoughts on the Red Bull corner of the world.

Together with Christian Horner, Marko sits in the enviable position at an energy company's expensive marketing exercise where there truly isn't any such thing as bad news.

Even the recent alleged civil war between the senior staff at the team isn't a negative from a holistic view, as the 'Red Bull' brand recognition expands to the newspapers' front pages without a penny of advertising spent.

However, for those who pay attention, Marko is also a bellwether for the Milton Keynes attitude and the direction they wish to pursue with their four drivers.

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Unlike any other team, Red Bull benefits from a sister outfit in RB (nee AlphaTauri, nee Toro Rosso) to swap or drop their pilots during a racing season.

Verstappen is one of the few to benefit from the unorthodox setup, with Alex Albon and Daniel Ricciardo enjoying a mid-year promotion but to lower success than the three-time champion.

Unfortunately for Ricciardo, Marko can give and Marko can take away, and recent indications suggest that the Australian Honey Badger could join a list he'd prefer to avoid.

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Ricciardo in 2024 - history repeating?

Pierre Gasly, Daniil Kvyat, Nyck de Vries, Christian Klien, Scott Speed and Sebastien Bourdais all began a season at one of the Red Bull teams but never finished their year in that seat, with most dropping out of the sport altogether.

The foreshadowing for these drivers' fates came weeks or months before the final decision was made, with media speculation of Red Bull's unhappiness preceding public criticism from the team or Marko.

Statements of frustration, seemingly meant as a final warning, echo around the paddock, and then a new name replaces an unhappy outgoing driver.

Marko squashed the speculation by the NZ Herald (who, it must be said, would understandably like to see Liam Lawson back racing in F1) that he had issued an ultimatum to Ricciardo, but the rumour mill starting so early is not a good sign for the Aussie's future.

Should Ricciardo get the chop in 2024, how long does he have based on those who suffered the axe before him?

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Red Bull Racing's mid-season driver drops

Nyck de Vries - 10 races before dropping

De Vries drove a single race before Marko stated that he needed to "step up a gear" and two before he and Yuki Tsunoda had to 'prove themselves if they want to stay in Formula 1'.

Eight rounds later, de Vries was out of the sport without a point scored in 2023, not even making the summer break.

Pierre Gasly - 12 races before dropping

Gasly's Red Bull time started badly with pre-season crashes, and the heat under the Frenchman had reached boiling point by the team's home round in Austria.

It was the Red Bull Ring where Marko said there weren't any plans to drop Gasly, yet two rounds later, the news came that Albon would take over from Gasly for the 2019 Belgian Grand Prix.

Daniil Kvyat - 4 races before dropping

The other driver in the frame for Gasly's seat in 2019 was Kvyat after the Russian took to the podium for Toro Rosso in Gasly's last race for Red Bull.

It would've been quite a comeback for Kvyat after suffering three drops from Red Bull in his previous two F1 seasons.

Kvyat must still wonder what might've been, with him only starting three rounds in 2016 (he did not make the grid in Australia) before swapping seats with Verstappen despite no prior warning.

Nine point-less races in Toro Rosso overalls in 2017 had him entirely out of F1 aside from returning for a P10 cameo in the USA before yet another drop completed a trio of Kvyat heartbreak.

Sebastien Bourdais - 9 races before dropping

Four-time Champ Car winner, Daytona 24hr winner, and three-time Le Mans 24hr P2 finisher Bourdais boasts a storied motorsport career, but not one good enough for Red Bull's B-team in F1.

The Frenchman had secured his American open-cockpit success before arriving in Formula 1.

Yet Toro Rosso thought his two point-scoring races in the first half of 2009 weren't good enough and dropped him for Jaime Alguersuari, a driver with no F1 experience. Alguersuari scored no points in the remainder of that season, while Bourdais successfully settled for a reported $2.1m after being fired by text message.

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Scott Speed - 10 races before dropping

The excellently named Speed was rather outspoken about his F1 future with Red Bull's support midway through his sophomore season in Toro Rosso colours.

Whether or not there was a physical altercation at the Nurburgring depends on who you ask.

Whatever the truth, the American was out of the sport in favour of a certain Sebastian Vettel following the 2007 European GP at the German track.

Christian Klien - 3 races before dropping

Austrian racer Christian Klien was the first driver to indicate how different Red Bull would operate in the team's maiden 2005 season.

He and Vitantonio Liuzzi drove alongside David Coulthard throughout the year, with Klien only starting two races (and stuck on the grid in the third) before Liuzzi took over for four rounds.

Klien later got the seat back in 2005 and signed on for 2006, but again lost his drive, this time with three races spare instead of after three races, and his Red Bull Racing time was over.

The circumstances behind each Red Bull reshuffle are mighty different. Nonetheless, history isn't on Ricciardo's side to turn his season around.

The average number of races before his employer gets fed up is just eight, giving the Aussie until Monaco, the site of his last Red Bull victory, in May to turn the tide.

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