As his career in Formula 1 comes to an end, Daniel Ricciardo has spoken about his future, ruling out remaining in the paddock in a simple role as third driver like last year.
In 2023, after his ouster by McLaren, the friendly Australian was unable to bounce back elsewhere as a starter and agreed to return to the Red Bull galaxy in a development role.
This allowed him to regain confidence in the simulator at Milton Keynes and get his chance in Scuderia AlphaTauri mid-season to succeed the disappointing Nyck de Vries thanks to the unwavering support of Christian Horner (photo above).
Ricciardo obviously hoped to demonstrate that he had lost none of his qualities in the hope of a promotion to the top Red Bull Racing team which he had left at the end of 2018 without having deservedly faced his young teammate Max Verstappen.
Le crash de Zandvoort
But an accident at Zandvoort took him away from the circuits again by offering a great opportunity to Liam Lawson, then his lackluster end to the season just allowed him to extend the experience in the B Racing Bulls team in 2024.
Often dominated by Yuki Tsunoda, Ricciardo did not justify Red Bull’s efforts to bring him back to the top and he will in principle have to step aside before the US Grand Prix in Austin, where he made his comeback after his convalescence twelve months ago, for the benefit of Lawson.
No satisfaction
This time, it feels like the end of the smiling Australian’s career in F1 as he is no longer interested in reservist status: “As much as it made sense last year to keep a foot in the door, this is no longer the case now that the prospect of returning to a winning context no longer exists” Daniel calmly analyzes.
“At 35, I noticed that it was more difficult to maintain the same level of performance, he admits. Getting out in Q1 brings no satisfaction and I must probably admit that time has taken its toll. I’m not even sure I still want to race in another discipline in the future, I need a little time to digest all this…”
We can regret that Red Bull did not officially communicate about this planned change, leaving Ricciardo in the dark, even if no one was fooled in Singapore: this lack of respect and recognition towards such a popular driver was hardly appreciated by the F1 community.
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