The team principal of world champions Red Bull, Christian Horner, says he did everything he could to buy axed Daniel Ricciardo time to impress, adding his career could have been over much sooner.

Ricciardo was officially replaced at Red Bulls’ sister team, VCARB RB, last week with 22-year-old Kiwi Liam Lawson to see out the last six race weekends of the 2024 season.

It came after months of speculation and rumour as varied as the West Aussie would replace Mexican Sergio Perez at Red Bull to his career being over.

The axe finally fell after another disappointing performance at the Singapore Grand Prix last month, but Horner revealed that team director Helmut Marko had called for Ricciardo’s head at the Spanish Grand Prix in June.

“I’ve done my very best to buy him as much time in the car to allow him to deliver, so otherwise he would have been out of the car after Barcelona,” Horner told the F1 Nation podcast.

“All the drivers are under pressure to deliver, but the reason that Daniel was in that car was to get himself back into a position to ultimately be there to pick up the pieces if Checo (Perez) didn’t deliver.

“The problem was, they both had issues with form at varying times. Checo started the season very well, very strongly, and Daniel was struggling.

“Then, as Checo lost form, Daniel found a bit of form, but it was never compelling enough to say, ‘OK, we should switch the two drivers’.

“Even around Barcelona, Helmut wanted him out of the car.”

Ricciardo was reportedly told Singapore would be his swan song but he was not given the chance for a farewell race.

He reaches the end of his Formula 1 road with the most championship points of any Aussie to go with eight Grand Prix victories, including seven with Red Bull and one at McLaren.