More hints were dropped in Baku that Daniel Ricciardo could lose his F1 seat for 202🌊5.

Only two vacant cars remain before t💝he🍨 2025 F1 driver line-up is confirmed.

Ricciardo’s seat at RB, and one Saജuber drive, are the only decisions that must be finalised.

At the F1 Azerbaꦦijan Grand Prix, where Ricciardo again suffered disappointment, whispers spread that Red B✤ull are teeing up a replacement for their sister team next season.

“Very disappointing day for them. A miserable day, actually,” r🅘eported Sky Spor💮ts’ Ted Kravitz after the race.

“Ricciardo was clearly up for it, on the grid.😼 Only P13.

“Ricciardo race🐼d Pierre Gaslyಞ but couldn’t finish ahead of him him, even when Gasly stopped on the last lap to take his mandatory tyre stop. As Gasly pitted under the Virtual Safety Car, they ended up 29 seconds behind. Not their day.

“Helmut Marko says it will be after Singapore - we have been waiting to hear who w♏ill be🌟 Yuki Tsunoda’s partner at RB next year.

“Marko is teasing that it’s now after Singapore that we will h🐼ear whether it’s going to be Ricciardo or Lawson.

“We think it’s going to be Liam Lawson.”

Lawso🐟n deputised for Ricciardo when he was inju💖red last season, and impressed driving for AlphaTauri.

But Ricciardo was still given the nod by Red Bull to🐷 stay with their sister team, and might have even replaced Sergio Perez if the cookie hadꦬ crumbled differently.

Instead, Red Bull reaffirmed faith in Perez and now Ricciardo’s ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚspot in his existing team is under severe threat.

Ricciardo's drab race in Baku

Ri𒉰cciardo said in Baku: “It was a tough race. The start felt okay; the medium runners in front of me looked like they were struggling, and we were able to catch them.

“I was on the ❀hard tyre and tried to use it whe⭕re I could by going long and finding the pace.

“After a few laps, we picked up a lot of grainin🌳g, which got worse and worse over 10 laps, causing us to be a few seconds off the pace. The t๊eam could see some other cars were clearing the graining, however it definitely took us a lot longer.

“When we did, we were able to come back and have a bit🐬 of pace again, but we had lost a lot of ground. I’ve never experienced graining like that, the swing of lap time was 💝up to four seconds.

“We need to understand why we had more graining for longer. ෴Looking ahead, I love the Marina Bay Street Circuit, so hopefully🎉 we can have a stronger weekend there.”

Tsu🦋noda retired after a first-lap collision 🎐with Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin.

Team principal Laurent Mekies said: “This wasn’t the weekend we were hopi✃ng for.

“Yuki was unlucky to be involved in a 💯collision on the first lap, while Daniel’s pace was badly affected by a huge amount of tyre graining, which kept him outside of🧸 the battle for the points.

“It’s something that is extremely unusual and we will need to 🤡get to the bottom of it and understand why it affected us so much more than our competitors.

“In terms of overall performance during theꦺ weekend, 📖no doubt that we still have a lot of work to do in front of us. The updates we brought here gave us an improvement in performance which is good news.

“However, it is not enough to match 🅘the progress our competitors have made and♐ get back into the top 10 fight.

“Everyone in Faenza and Bicester are working hard to improve i🐲n every single area and to introduce more developments soon. Let’s see if we can do better starting on the streets of Singapore in a few days’ time.”