Red Bull 'a good place' for Ricciardo - Hamilton

If this transcript is correct than Hamilton was not only leading Ricciardo on, he also tried to belittle Ricciardo, create some controversy within Red Bull, and set up the drivers against each other. Would Hamilton see Ricciardo as a threat?

Hamilton says what Toto tells him to say. Their goal is to increase tension between the best driver pair on the grid.
It would be funny to see Ricciardo at Mercedes. Hamilton lost the title against someone like Rosberg. A driver who was hired to support him.
Imagine what Riccardo would do to him. Of course Hamilton would quit the day they sign the Australian.

There's nothing LH said that doesn't make perfect sense since there are unlikely to be an opening at Ferrari and MB for next year. Given a stronger engine, Danny would likely win the WC. Also, he deserves at least as much money as Max.

The problem with Ricciardo staying at Red Bull is that he would not be on as equal a footing as Verstappen, in fact I think Ricciardo is very fortunate that Verstappen crashed in P3, because had Verstappen started at the top of the field at Monaco, there is no doubt a situation would have been engineered to ensure Verstappen won, for evidence I think you need only look to what happened at Azerbaijan following China.

In China Red Bull were literally brilliant in the timing and execution of their pit calls, twice making spontaneous high risk pit calls (both times - with Verstappen in front - banking both drivers) that was to the advantage of both cars, it was an absolutely inspired effort by the strategist (in fact, it was the team that gave Ricciardo the win that day, to the extent that instead of jumping into his team mates at the end of the race, he should have gotten down on one knee before them in appreciation and awe!).

Then, contrast the strategist’s effort in China against what happened at Azerbaijan. Ricciardo had the better set up and was clearly the faster driver on the day, and had the tables been turned and it was Verstappen in Ricciardo’ s position, there is no doubt Verstappen would have been on the radio squealing to be let past, but it was what happened when Ricciardo finally did get past that proves Verstappen is the favoured driver…… The team pitted Ricciardo first!

After the brilliance shown in China, you can’t tell me that the Red Bull team was not aware that the pits stops were favouring the over-cut, as opposed to the usual under-cut. I watched the race again at the weekend, and both Ferrari and Mercedes definitely knew the over-cut was the optimum strategy, even the commentators were stating it prior to the stop! The team had to have known that Ricciardo would have been put back into traffic after the stop, and that Verstappen would have a clear track ahead of him. Even a dummy would have known Verstappen’s pre-pit lap would have been faster than Ricciardo’s out lap! Ricciardo was definitely pitted first in order to put him back behind Verstappen. There is no doubt Verstappen is the favoured driver at Red Bull.

I agree that Hammy's talking rubbish again. If Ricciardo wants a championship, he has no choice but to move to a factory team. I reckon Ricciardo to Ferrari, Raikkonen as lead driver at Sauber - Alfa Romeo - particularly with Simone Resta becoming Sauber's new Technical Director.

I'm sure Hamilton doesn't think it would be good to have Ricardo at Mercedes - it would all to likely end in a repeat of 2017 - a World Championship for his team mate. Regarding a move to Ferrari, I think that it's not so much that Kimi is having a good year, rather that Vettel is having (another) bad year. If I was making the decisions at Ferrari 2019 we would see Ricardo and LeClerec driving for the team.