Daniel Ricciardo has opened up on the conclusion of his Formula 1 career, acknowledging that he is “grateful” for Red Bull calling time on his stint as an F1 driver.
The Australian’s F1 career came to a close following the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix, as he was replaced by Liam Lawson at Racing Bulls for the remainder of that season. It was an abrupt end to his time in F1 after he came through the Red Bull family, initially driving for HRT before joining the Red Bull sister team, Toro Rosso, for the 2012 campaign.
The “Honey Badger” was then promoted to the senior Red Bull squad for 2014, where he scored seven Grand Prix victories, before spells at Renault (2019-20) and McLaren (2021-22) followed.
However, it was at McLaren that his career began to show signs of faltering, with Ricciardo unable to match the pace of team mate Lando Norris. In the end, the team opted to part ways with Ricciardo at the end of 2022 with compatriot Oscar Piastri coming in as his replacement – leading to a first spell on the sidelines.
Returning to Red Bull in a reserve capacity initially, Ricciardo made his comeback to the F1 grid in 2023 with the then-named AlphaTauri team, replacing Nyck de Vries, but his racing return was halted in its tracks when the Australian broke his hand in a practice crash in Zandvoort.
Lawson made his own F1 debut as a substitute for the stricken Ricciardo, stepping in for five Grands Prix until the Australian recovered. However, while Ricciardo returned to the seat for the remainder of 2023 and kept it into 2024, the decision was ultimately made to call time on his F1 career after the Singapore Grand Prix with Lawson given the opportunity instead.
“I definitely had to try and understand a lot the last 12 months about the career coming to an end, and it is like timing,” Ricciardo explained on DRIVE with Jim Farley as he reflected on the sudden end to his time in F1.
“You know you aren’t really going to get it back – once it is gone, it’s gone for the most part. So, ’22 I struggled a lot [in] my second year at McLaren, so they let me go. [In] ’23 I started without a seat and that was like, ‘is this maybe it, do I call it now?’
“But I knew there was still some burning desire in me… That’s where I really needed to try and look at myself in the mirror and say ‘okay, forget what the people say. What do you want?’
“I tried to make it as personal as possible but there are still opinions, your parents or whatever, but ultimately I did my best to make sure there was still that fire inside my gut. So, I got back into the seat halfway through the [2023] season, I got a drive.
“Second or third race in, I broke my hand and it was such a nothing accident, but I missed however many races. [I] think I was out for 10 weeks or something. I’ve never really hurt myself racing all these years and I have a silly crash and is this a bit of a sign? Should I quit while I’m ahead really?”
While the Australian raced on into 2024, his last season in F1 yielded just three top-10 Grand Prix finishes in 18 races, while team mate Yuki Tsunoda managed seven.
As a result, reports started to emerge regarding Ricciardo’s future, with the Red Bull family known for making decisive decisions regarding their driver line-ups.
“[After the crash] there was still unfinished business so I pushed through it and I lasted another year in F1 and then ultimately got let go,” he added.
“That was the reality at the time. But I think once that happened, I had to… let’s say being let go twice in the last few years, it had also taken a lot out of me. I had put a lot of my soul into it and I did feel pretty exhausted by it.
“In reflection I was grateful that they made the decision for me. I think it would have been hard to be like ‘I’m done’.
“Not so much for me, I knew it was harder for me to perform at that level. Like [Fernando] Alonso, these guys are in their 40s in F1, competing very highly. For whatever reason, I lost a little bit of something and it is okay to admit it, it is fine.”
He concluded: “I knew it was becoming harder for me and I had to dig really deep to pull out a result that I was proud of… Last year, so my retirement year, I gave myself a lot of time to reflect on my career, to be at peace with it.”
Ricciardo ultimately finished his F1 career with eight Grand Prix wins (seven with Red Bull plus his famous success at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix with McLaren) across 257 starts.
Following his departure from F1 he is now a Global Ambassador for the Ford Racing division, a move that was confirmed in September last year.
