Ricciardo's F1 Career Looks Over, But Should We Really Be Sad?

Many moons ago, there was an unfathomably smiley new Formula 1 driver from Australia. Daniel Ricciardo, a protege of the Red Bull Junior Team, took over the notoriously rubbish HRT car from Narain Karthikeyan mid-way through the 2011 season. With his happy-go-lucky demeanour and eye-catching driving skills, he would soon make it to F1’s top team, score a number of impressive wins, showcase some dazzling overtaking skills and prove a PR team’s dream.

But mid-way through 2024, Ricciardo’s F1 career looks to be over, at least for now. Although not officially confirmed at the time of writing, rumour is rife that his seat in the RB team will be taken over by New Zealander Liam Lawson at the next race, leaving Ricciardo without a drive.

His presumed departure follows years of underperformance and it’s hard for even his most ardent fans to justify his place on the grid anymore. While he was, at a particular time and in a particular car, a very good F1 driver, that time is long gone. He’s had his chance for redemption and then some, and it hasn’t happened – it’s time to give the fresh blood a go.

In many ways, it’s surprising that this hasn’t happened sooner. While Ricciardo’s peaks were undeniably impressive, and his humour and general bonhomie have continued to delight marketing teams in spite of his diminishing performances, the results over recent years just haven’t been good enough and he apparently hasn’t been able to either work out why or do anything about it.

Back at the start of his F1 career, Ricciardo’s time with HRT at the back of the field went well enough to land him a drive at Toro Rosso for 2012. Two years later, having just about got the better of team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne, he was promoted to the senior Red Bull Racing team, replacing his retiring compatriot Mark Webber.

This would turn out to be the pinnacle of Ricciardo’s career. Despite getting disqualified in his first race of 2014, he would immediately outperform his teammate Sebastian Vettel, gathering three race wins and third place in the drivers’ championship. The following year saw Vettel get the measure of Ricciardo, but 2016 saw the Aussie fight back, finishing third in the championship again with another win to his name.

In 2015 Vettel moved to Ferrari, and Ricciardo became Red Bull’s obvious number-one driver, lining up alongside a young upstart named Max Verstappen. Ricciardo beat Verstappen to fifth place in the title race, although Verstappen scored two wins to Ricciardo’s one. But by the end of 2018, Verstappen was clearly the better driver. In Daniel’s defence, he’d had terrible reliability, but didn’t help himself by colliding with his teammate in Baku and making various other unforced errors over the season that cost him points.

Midway through the 2018 season, Ricciardo announced that he would be leaving Red Bull to join Renault for 2019. The first year didn’t go particularly well; he finished ninth in the championship. A 2020 truncated by Covid went better, with a fifth-place finish and a couple of podiums, and gave him high hopes for a better season with McLaren in 2021.

The move to Woking partnered Riccardo with Lando Norris, and although Ricciardo actually managed to score a win at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, across that season and the next Norris basically wiped the floor with him. Mid-way through 2022, after more poor performances, McLaren and Ricciardo terminated their contract a year early, leaving him without a drive for 2023, although he was named as Red Bull’s third driver.

Red Bull’s lack of patience with drivers proved fortuitous for Ricciardo mid-way through 2023, as Alphatauri fired Nyck de Vries and Daniel was parachuted in to take his place alongside Yuki Tsunoda. Unfortunately, Ricciardo promptly broke his hand during practice for the Dutch Grand Prix, which put Liam Lawson in his seat for the next four races. Lawson did very well, and although Ricciardo came back for the last few races of the season and actually had a pretty decent stint, few expected him to keep the seat for 2024.

But stay he did at the newly renamed RB team (officially the Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team, yes, really), and in hindsight, that was probably a mistake. While Tsunoda is a perfectly decent racing driver he’s nothing special, and Ricciardo has been behind him for most of their partnership. Poor performance after poor performance has now essentially left his position untenable. As teams realise that young blood can be effective, as seen recently by performances by Ollie Bearman at Haas and Ferrari, and Franco Colapinto at Williams, they’re seemingly less likely to hang on to drivers for old times’ sake.

Daniel Ricciardo is understandably sad at losing his drive and at not performing at the levels that he once did. But he’ll be fine. He’s had 13 years in Formula 1, made a lot of money and can now waltz into just about any racing series he likes. There’s still a theoretical chance that he’ll be back in F1 next year, but it’s more likely that his big grinning face will soon crop up in the WEC, IndyCar or even NASCAR. And good luck to him.