Daniel Ricciardo is race fit and ready to rejoin the grid just two races into a “tough” season on the sidelines, according to Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner.

Ricciardo is back in the F1 paddock in his role as Red Bull Racing’s third driver for the first time since leaving McLaren at the end of last season, with the position largely comprising marketing and promotional duties.

The Australian opted against a race drive after two bruising and mentally draining seasons in Woking, choosing instead to seek rejuvenation via a sabbatical from the sport.

But his appearance at his home grand prix has been anything but relaxed or low profile.

“Even though he‘s not driving, he’s still probably the most popular driver here,” Horner said of Ricciardo’s jubilant reception at Albert Park.

“Daniel’s just a positive energy to have around, and to see him getting his mojo back, to see that big smile on his face — he lights up a room when he walks in.

“It‘s great to have him back in blue and be back in the team.”

Ricciardo, however, isn’t planning on settling into life outside the cockpit.

His Red Bull Racing program includes factory support at some races via work in the simulator and with the engineers, and this weekend he’s engaged in driver briefings at the circuit.

And he said earlier this week there were “signs pointing to” an F1 return in 2024, while Haas boss Guenther Steiner spoke glowingly about the chance of him being back on the grid.

“He‘s really throwing himself into it,” Horner said. “For us it’s just positive to have him in the team contributing to the team, to the drivers, to the engineering team.

“It‘s a different experience. It must be very tough for him not being a race driver this weekend, but he’s thrown himself into and embracing this new role.

“Hopefully he‘ll rediscover his love for the sport.”

The workload is designed to help Ricciardo decide whether he still has the hunger to commit to more grand prix campaigns, and speaking earlier in the weekend, Ricciardo said his two weekends out of the sport already had him leaning towards a comeback.

“The signs are pointing towards getting back on the grid,” he said.

“Having the chance to step back and just review everything from afar, and with the luxury of time as well … it made me realise how much I do care about it.

“I want to be back with a top team and a team where I have that confidence back and my mojo.

“To go back and to maybe put myself in any seat that’s fighting at best for like a top 10, I don’t think it’s going to bring the best out of me.

“I see myself, at least in my head, wanting to be back on the grid. But there’s still some terms and conditions, so to speak. It’s not at all costs.”

Horner suggested that part of what exhausted Ricciardo to the point that he needed time off was the picking up of bad habits trying to adapt to a series of wayward McLaren cars in the past two years.

The team boss even went so far as to say that Ricciardo appeared as a different driver when he returned to the team at the end of last year, some four years since he departed for Renault, and that he needed to rediscover himself to break the funk.

“I think the problem is when you drive a car that obviously has its limitations, you adapt and you try and adjust to extract the maximum out of that car,” he said.

“It was clear when he came back that he’d picked up some habits that we didn‘t recognise as Daniel that had left us two or three years earlier.

“We‘ve had to feed him up — I don’t know what [McLaren] did to him, but he came back looking a bit skinny, but he’s looking healthier now.

“But having had time off over Christmas and so on and a chance to reset, when he came back and got into the 2023 work he hit the ground running.”

In fact the change has been night and day, and Horner said that Ricciardo was now back to being fully race fit after only a few months recovering from his McLaren trauma.

“I’d say he’s about 10 minutes away from being ready,” Horner said whether he’d be comfortable fielding Ricciardo as a reserve driver if the need arose. “He’s in good shape. He‘s kept himself fit and well.

“He‘s training hard and he’s ready to go if given a chance.

“I think he likes the feel of the car in the virtual world, which seems to correlate well with what we‘re seeing in the actual world, and I think he’s desperate to get a run in the car at some point to validate that.

“But we‘re certainly seeing him getting back to being far more reminiscent of Daniel that we knew.”

Speaking at the same press conference as Horner, McLaren CEO Zak Brown said he pleased to see that Ricciardo was looking happier after being sacked by the team part of the way through last year.

“I’m thrilled he’s here this weekend,” he said. “I think we‘re all big Daniel fans — as Christian said, he lights up a room when he walks in and smiles.

“I don‘t think we know, he knows, exactly why it didn’t click. Sometimes drivers just need to recharge their batteries — Fernando did, Alain Prost did et cetera — over the years, so hopefully Daniel will get an opportunity to go and try to win his ninth grand prix and many more.

“I think we’d all love to see him back on the grid on a regular basis.”