Stupid mistake forces Daniel Ricciardo’s new AlphaTauri F1 team to remove photo of Australian star
- Red Bull junior team signed Aussie on July 11
- They posted official images of him in his colors.
- Fans caught a bug that caused the photo to be removed
The AlphaTauri Formula One team was forced to do an embarrassing backflip after posting a photo of new recruit Daniel Ricciardo that featured an obvious mistake.
The Australian joined the team on July 11 after spending the first 11 races of the year as Red Bull’s reserve driver and is due to make his debut for them at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
But when AlphaTauri posted an official photo of Ricciardo in his new racing team on social media on Monday, fans pointed out that it was an image of the 34-year-old’s head photoshopped onto the body of the driver he replaced, Nyck. DeVries. .
The team reacted by removing the photo just hours after it was posted and replacing it with an unaltered image of the Australian in his colours.
AlphaTauri had to back off after he was caught Photoshopping Ricciardo’s head onto the body of the driver he is replacing, Nyck De Vries (pictured)
The team quickly replaced the altered photo with the real one (pictured)
AlphaTauri’s very public mess comes after veteran F1 pitlane reporter Ted Kravitz questioned the Perth-born driver’s mindset and warned he could find life very difficult with the struggling team.
‘It’s all very well to point to [Daniel’s] test times in the Red Bull RB19, which is the class car of the field, but the reality is that Ricciardo does not drive that car,” Kravitz said on the Sky Sports F1 podcast.
“He drives probably one of the slowest cars on the grid, if not the slowest, which is the AlphaTauri.”
“My only question is that they shouldn’t have replaced Nyck de Vries, it clearly wasn’t working… the surprise is why would Daniel Ricciardo want to get into that car and into a car that is worse than the McLaren? He left last year, probably.
Ricciardo impressed when he drove Red Bull’s RB19 at Silverstone (pictured) and signed with AlphaTauri on July 11.
The Australian will drive for his new team for the first time at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix
Kravitz was also taken aback after Ricciardo declared: “I’m happy to be back on track with the Red Bull family” in the press release announcing his move.
‘That quote, I found strange. He doesn’t even dare say AlphaTauri,’ she said.
‘There may be some pain in the short term [for Ricciardo] if you can’t do better than De Vries.
Last Saturday, Ricciardo admitted he had to “fall back in love with Formula One” after enduring two shocking seasons at McLaren and his eight-month break from racing.
“Stopping loving him had an impact on my confidence,” she said.
‘If you’re competing in a sport where you’re trying to be the best at something, the best in the world at something, obviously you need full confidence and confidence.
‘When that starts to wane a bit, your enjoyment drops a bit as well. There are many factors.
“Going back to Red Bull, just the reception I got coming back to that team was a bit overwhelming in a positive way.
