The Gurgler’s Wooden Spooners Headlines team have searched through the world’s newspapers, F1 websites, and Twitter feeds, and have even infiltrated the pit crew of each team to bring you the stories no other F1 website can and/or would. This week’s F1 Headlines features more of what the internet can ‘t get enough of, Daniel Ricciardo Shock F1 Return Comeback stories.
And why not start there. No driver has made more headlines in the past two months (or two weeks) than Daniel Ricciardo and it’s our best chance to get more than three or four people reading our articles. Maybe it’s that famous smile of Ricciardo that gets the clicks, maybe it’s that electric personality or infectious laugh, but the level of coverage isn’t at the same level of performance. Can’t imagine that a Thierry Boutsen or an Antonio Pizzonia back in the day would be garnering so much attention. One being Belgian and the other being quite ordinary doesn’t help.
We’ve had an F1 Headlines spy in the Red Bull organisation for most of the 2024 F1 season, and they have the lowdown on what they expect to happen before the end of the season.
Red Bull will announce that Sergio Perez will retire at the end of the season, but unofficially it is Helmut Marko holding the gun. At least Perez will be given a home race and a proper farewell.
But that sacking is seen as a blatant power grab by Christian Horner, who finally cracks the sh!ts with Helmut Marko and gets the Thai side of the ownership to sack Helmut Marko.
This of course will then piss off Jos Verstappen (former Simtek driver) who gives Christian Horner the mother of all sprays in the media in the days after Marko’s sacking. It includes several references to Horner’s failed driving career, marriage to a former Spice Girl, and ballooning ego courtesy of the Netflix show.
It will be no surprise that this spray is then the final straw for Horner and some of the Red Bull management, who announce that Jos Verstappen is banned from any Red Bull facilities during race and testing weekends, including any head office or factory. He is also limited to purchasing Red Bull in four packs only. Which is the final straw.
Of course this then leads to Max Verstappen being angry at losing Helmut Marko and his dad from his inner group, which leads him to swear when asked about it in an FIA press conference. Which then sees the Red Bull driver fined 1 Million Euros and placed under a suspended ban.
Christian Horner then doesn’t defend Max Verstappen given the content of Max Verstappen’s spray, Horner also fines him and gives him a suspended race ban internally. This then sees Max Verstappen crack it royally and announce that he will be taking a sabbatical in 2025, refusing to drive for Red Bull while Christian Horner is in charge. Behind the scenes Mercedes work out a payment plan to give Max Verstappen $US100M a season to switch to Mercedes for 2026. Verstappen wins Le Mans, Indy 500, and the Bathurst 1000 in 2025 and finishes 5th in the NASCAR series Championship and wins the F2 race in Monaco.
When Yuki Tsunoda comes out in support of Max Verstappen, Red Bull also fine and threaten him with a suspension. Which then sees Tsunoda announce that he is quitting Red Bull to become the Aston Martin reserve driver and begins to work on white-anting Lance Stroll. After Lance Stroll crashes for the first four races of 2025, writing off two chassis, and the new added importance of doing a professional job with an Adrian Newey team, his father Lawrence sacks Alonso and gives Tsunoda the seat.
Given that Red Bull now only have one contracted driver for four seats over two teams, no Helmut Marko, no Adrian Newey or other important people that have left the Red Bull circus, the remaining Austrian management contingent fight behind the scenes and eventually win, announcing that Christian Horner has been sacked. Leaving the team with no Team Principal either.
Which leaves just about every key position in Red Bull up for grabs.
Realising that Red Bull have become the afternoon soap opera sh!tshow of F1 and motorsports in general, and thrown everything away, the remaining owners who haven’t fired each other then agree to bring back Daniel Ricciardo as the new Team Principal.
The first decision as Team Principal is bring Liam Lawson to Red Bull, and re-hire himself as the second driver, becoming the first driver-manager in decades in F1. Taking a leaf out of Australian motorsport legend Jack Brabham, and with an eye to Ricciardo’s popularity in the USA and across the world, Daniel Ricciardo manages to squeeze his name and a reference to having an Australian and New Zealander in the car into the official FIA entry list, with the 2025 team to be known as Red Bull Ricciardo Anzac Ford F1 Team.
Ricciardo then convinces the Red Bull owners to sell the Toro Rosso-RB-Visa-Cash-App team for $US900M to the Andretti US F1 concern, and with Daniel Ricciardo putting in a clause of 5% of any future sale of any Red Bull team in his contract when he signed on as Driver-Team Principal, he pockets a cool $US45M, which is the second time in his career he’s pocketed a large chunk of F1 cash without driving.
So will all that to unfold in the next few months, just act surprised when it happens, and know that the Wooden Spooners F1 Headlines team will always try and have the big stories first.
