Red Bull Racing has announced that Toro Rosso driver Daniel Ricciardo, will step in and take fellow Australian Mark Webber's seat in the upcoming 2014 Formula One World Championship season. Webber announced back in June that he would step away from Formula One at the end of the 2013 season. Webber will make Porsche his home in 2014. He will race in their new LMP1 car in the FIA World Endurance Championship as well as the 24 Hours of Le Mans. When he announced his leaving, the racing community was not shocked, especially after his teammate Sebastian Vettel defied team orders and passed Mark Webber in the closing laps of the Malaysian Grand Prix. It seemed that after years of being Red Bull Racing's second driver, he had had enough.
During the Summer rumors spread like wildfire and names were being tossed into the rumor mill left and right. However, the two names that were brought up the most were Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo and Lotus' Kimi Raikkonen. Neither had contracts in place with their respective teams for the 2014 Formula One season. None of the teams or drivers in the mix would comment on the rumors, until Red Bull Racing made a statement saying that their selection would be made public after the summer break in late August. Once that break was up, people wanted an answer right away in Belgium but all parties kept mum. Many were certain the contract would go to Raikkonen until he was a no-show at the Friday press conference.
On September 2nd, Red Bull Racing put all rumors to rest when they stated that the 24 year old Aussie, Daniel Raiccardo would race alongside three time world champion Sebastian Vettel next year. So why no Kimi? He has the drive, talent, and skill to be successful at Red Bull. He won the 2007 Formula One world championship with Ferrari and is doing quite well at Lotus. His resume and experience in racing is reason enough to hire him over Ricciardo. The reason is simple, Kimi Raikkonen does not want to play second fiddle to Sebastian Vettel, and you can’t really blame him. Raikkonen doesn’t need to move to Red Bull in order to be successful, he already is. We’ll just have to wait to see if Lotus renews his contract at the end of the year. In the meantime, onto the Italian Grand Prix taking place this weekend.
-Dallas Hollins
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PHOTO CREDIT: RED BULL
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