{"id":18872,"date":"2013-07-26T07:06:10","date_gmt":"2013-07-26T11:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=18872"},"modified":"2013-07-26T07:06:10","modified_gmt":"2013-07-26T11:06:10","slug":"webbers-successor-to-be-decided-after-hungary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/webbers-successor-to-be-decided-after-hungary\/","title":{"rendered":"Webber’s successor to be decided after Hungary"},"content":{"rendered":"

The F1 world is hanging on the protagonists’ every word, as Red Bull nears a decision about who will replace Mark Webber in 2014.<\/p>\n

\"Red-Bull-Racing\"Rumours in the Hungaroring paddock swirled that a contract is being prepared with Daniel Ricciardo’s name on it, but the young Australian insisted: “I haven’t seen one!”<\/p>\n

The time, however, is looming.<\/p>\n

“Usually there’s two or three press guys turning up for my media sessions, today it was more like 20 or 30,” the Toro Rosso driver said in Hungary.<\/p>\n

Their wait continues for now, but it will end soon.<\/p>\n

In Budapest, the last race before a four-week break in the calendar, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner revealed: “We’ll take probably the summer break to reflect.<\/p>\n

“Then it (the decision) is going to be Spa or Monza but it’s not going to be later than that I don’t think.”<\/p>\n

Ricciardo’s Toro Rosso teammate Jean-Eric Vergne was once considered in the running for the plum seat next to Sebastian Vettel, but Horner admitted it is now definitely a two-horse race.<\/p>\n

“I think at this stage it (a Red Bull seat) is probably too early for him (Vergne).<\/p>\n

“I think he deserves a seat in formula one.\u00a0 Should he not be successful with the Red Bull seat then it makes logical sense for him to continue at Toro Rosso,” he added.<\/p>\n

With that, then, Horner said Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen are “extremely good” candidates to succeed the Le Mans-bound Webber.<\/p>\n

Red Bull team owner Dietrich Mateschitz said this week that Ricciardo, 23, did an “excellent” job in the Red Bull at the recent Silverstone test.<\/p>\n

Horner agreed: “The test has strengthened his case.”<\/p>\n

At the very same time, 2007 world champion Raikkonen hinted he might simply stay at Lotus next year — admitting that decision could attract some critics.<\/p>\n

“Whatever the decision will be,” the Finn said in Budapest, “it might feel stupid to somebody else but then it might feel right for me.”<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old, who drove for top teams McLaren and Ferrari in his pre-sabbatical career, also suggested the decision will be taken in the summer break.<\/p>\n

“I haven’t made my decision,” Raikkonen told Finland’s Turun Sanomat newspaper, “and I will not make it this weekend.”<\/p>\n

\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The F1 world is hanging on the protagonists’ every word, as Red Bull nears a decision about who will replace Mark Webber in 2014. Rumours in the Hungaroring paddock swirled that a contract is being prepared with Daniel Ricciardo’s name on it, but the young Australian insisted: “I haven’t seen one!” The time, however, is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[128,1096,262,5262,5340,152,165,129,164,259],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18873,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18872\/revisions\/18873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}