Daniel Ricciardo under fire for public response to Red Bull ‘sext’ scandal that has rocked Formula One.

Daniel Ricciardo is under fire for his public response to the Red Bull “sext” scandal that has rocked Formula One.

The Perth F1 superstar, who sits behind the wheel of sister company Visa CashApp RB (formerly Alphatauri) prompted outrage when he referred to the saga involving Red Bull boss Christian Horner as “noise and distractions”.

It comes after revelations on Thursday that the woman at the centre of the situation was suspended by Red Bull ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The woman had accused Horner of inappropriate behaviour.

However, the allegations were dismissed by the team’s independent barrister-led investigation. The woman elected not to appeal the verdict and no criminal allegations have been made.

Just hours later, hundreds of “sexually suggestive” messages allegedly sent by the 50-year-old team principal were leaked.

While champion driver Max Verstappen has on numerous occasions elected not to speak out in support of Horner, Ricciardo raised eyebrows with his public response.

The 34-year-old, speaking on the opening day of the grand prix, told TV networks, that he hoped the situation will “slowly go away”.

“Right now there is a lot of noise and distractions, there’s no doubt,” he said.

“The way they performed last week… you would think for them to be able to still focus on business on track, that is a big strength of theirs.

“So, yeah, hopefully these things start to slowly go away, and they can just focus on being a race team.

“But of course, for the drivers as well it’s not always easy, but I think they did. A good job in handling this.”