Has Ricciardo’s injury cost him a Red Bull drive for 2024? Rosberg's theory...
Ricciardo’s shunt in second practice at the Dutch Grand Prix resulted in a broken metacarpal.
As a result, he’s been forced to have surgery in Barcelona, missing out on racing at Zandvoort and Monza.
Ricciardo is expected to miss the next two rounds in Singapore and Japan before hopefully making a return for Qatar at the start of October.
The Australian’s return to F1 was centred around joining Red Bull again at some point alongside Max Verstappen - the team he left for Renault in 2019.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Sky F1 podcast, Rosberg believes Ricciardo’s injury will force him into another year with AlphaTauri, rather than a return to Red Bull.
“Lawson did a good job, especially at Monza. One-and-a-half tenths behind Tsunoda, that’s awesome,” he said.
“How lucky for Daniel, to get a chance to come back then to break his hand in a freak accident.
“The latest from Christian is that he’ll be back in Qatar, so a couple of races.
“Daniel has such a value to Red Bull, he is liked by Red Bull, so they’ll be patient in giving him a clear chance.
“This break might be the difference between him replacing Perez next year, and staying at AlphaTauri. The hand break will put him one more year in AlphaTauri.”
