It may be easy to look at the Formula 1 Drivers Championship leaderboard and deduce that Ricciardo is the better Red Bull driver. However The last few races point towards Verstappen as the better driver.
Verstappen has had a horrible run of luck since the Bahrain Grand Prix when he suffered a brake failure. He has failed now to finish in 5 out of the 9 races. Meanwhile Ricciardo has had 5 consecutive podiums and one race win in Baku during that time.
So why is Verstappen the better of the two drivers?
Verstappen has been blighted by an unlikely run of bad luck. In Spain he came off worst after a three car jostle for position out of turn 1 and 2;
Monaco he was stuck behind bottas on an impossible to overtake track; Canada and Baku were just pure reliability issues.
Yet in each of those races up until Austria this weekend, Verstappen has been quicker in all qualifying sessions and all but two practice sessions. In Canada he was in P2 seemingly have had the measure of the Mercedes in the early stages and then he had to retire. In Baku, similar situation. Then today in Spielberg at Red Bull's home circuit he was taken out by a first corner lock up by Danil Kvyat that subsequently retired Verstappen and Alonso.
Arguably it's the final points that matters but one can only wonder how many points ahead of Ricciardo he would be had it not been for his bad luck. His qualifying performance and the little race action he has had shows that he more than has the measure of Ricciardo. Surely the tide must turn for Silverstone.