In case Ferrari decides against renewing Kimi Raikkonen’s contract for a fourth season, a Vettel-Ricciardo reunion could eventually be in play.
Unfortunately for the Scuderia, Ricciardo is under contract with Red Bull for 2017, though by no means does that exclude him from the conversation of possible replacements for Raikkonen.
“It’s like last year, I understand if they were to make a change I’m a driver on their list,” said the Aussie F1 star in an interview with Autosport. “Am I the only driver on that list? Probably not. Am I their top pick? I don’t know. They haven’t made anything clear to me.”
Ricciardo even goes on to say that he doesn’t blame Ferrari for being interested and judging by his performance on the track these past few years, we can’t really blame them either. The Red Bull driver is currently 5th in the Drivers standings, 3 points shy of Kimi Raikkonen and 18 points shy of Sebastian Vettel, which can still be considered striking distance in today’s Formula 1.
Speaking of Vettel, the German driver admitted to being OK with partnering up again, if the situation should arise. “I don’t mind him, I like him, he’s a strong guy.”
Ricciardo however, though himself not minding partnering up with Vettel again, stated that “the only reason I would jump ship and go up against him again would be to fight for a world title. Otherwise, if it’s just to have a [different] team-mate, I would rather try against a Lewis or Fernando or something different.”
The Red Bull man also brought up how cautious he was before first accepting a seat next to Vettel.
“With his relationship with Mark before I got there, I was…cautious, with my approach with him as a team-mate. But he was solid and we actually got on well and obviously the season went better for me than it did for him.”
Ricciardo is obviously referring to the 2014 F1 season when he finished the year third with 238 points to Vettel’s 167 points.
“He never really made excuses and if I beat him he shook my hand like a man and said “good race”, so he was a good team-mate. He is quick and I would expect if we were to be team-mates again one day I’m sure he would put up a fight and it would be a good rivalry.”
While Vettel and Ricciardo rekindling their intra-squad rivalry would be a great story, it’s also interesting to know that the latter would actually prefer racing alongside Lewis Hamilton or Fernando Alonso, if only for the sake of mixing it up a bit.