Ricciardo Confirmed Full-Time Reserve for Red Bull Racing

Although both Daniel Ricciardo and Brendon Hartley were both confirmed reserve drivers for Red Bull earlier this year, it has emerged that only the former will take on that particular responsibility for the Red Bull Racing outfit. The news was confirmed by the team's racing advisor Helmut Marko, who made it very clear that the Australian driver will not swap places with Hartley on a race to race basis, but will remain the team's reserve driver for the entire 2010 campaign.

“In a grand prix weekend our juniors do PR tasks, do visits for guests of Red Bull and need to attend all the technical meetings. It would make no sense if they switch back and forth, because the working practices of each team is slightly different,” said Marko in an interview with motorline.cc.

When the Austrian company initially confirmed for the media that the two drivers will share reserve driver responsibilities within the organization, everybody assumed that each will play his role with either Red Bull or Toro Rosso for one grand prix, after which they'll change teams during the next event.

However, with Ricciardo now a full-time reserve driver for Red Bull Racing, it seems Hartley will become a full-time reserve driver for Scuderia Toro Rosso. The New Zealander was previously a reserve driver for Red Bull in the early stages of last season, but preferred to put those commitments on a hold and focus on his racing programme inside the Formula Renault 3.5 series and the highly-competitive F3 Euroseries.

However, further reports now suggest that Ricciardo would be the preferred driver to substitute one of the Toro Rosso racers also – in case the situation would require it – meaning Hartley would only experience his first F1 drive in the unusual event of one driver from both RBR and STR missing out during the same grand prix weekend.