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Christian Horner has revealed that senior figures at Red Bull were split over whether to axe Daniel Ricciardo.

“Even around Barcelona, Helmut [Marko] wanted him out of the car,” said Horner.

“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.

“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 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, okay, we should switch the two drivers.”