“Wild and wonderful.” That’s how Daniel Ricciardo described a journey in Formula One that concluded on Thursday with confirmation of his ousting from RB for the remainder of the 2024 season. It was hardly unexpected, given talk of the 35-year-old’s future had dominated the build-up to last week’s race and a final flourish to record the fastest lap in Singapore carried all the airs of one last bow. The Australian, one of the sport’s most ebullient characters, appeared at peace with what was to come as he described the lap as “one last crack at doing a fast one”.
Ricciardo’s wording feels apt. In large part thanks to his endearing presence in the Netflix series Drive to Survive, he departs the sport as one of its most popular figures. The tide of tributes flowing from fans and peers speaks to the imprint that he has had on the grid, not just as a driver but also as a personality. At a time when F1 has experienced a surge in new interest in a social-media-driven age, his beaming smile, entertaining interviews and famous ‘shoey’ celebration – and his 32 appearances on the podium – have become core memories of a generation of new fans.
There was likely an early and astute recognition by Ricciardo of the potential boons that could be gleaned from F1’s foray on to Netflix, but the unabashed Aussie-ness he has portrayed on the world stage has carried particular weight in his homeland. Being willing to poke fun and not take oneself too seriously is a big part of the ‘larrikin’ identity the country likes to portray to the world and here was one of its finest athletes doing so, in one of sport’s most opulent and elite environments. This is especially true in his hometown of Perth, which counts him as one of its all-time sporting exports.
A generation of F1 fans will now remember Ricciardo as a character, one of the grid’s strongest personalities. Yet, in a vacuum, that would be unfair as it would threaten to overshadow the immense promise and flashes of brilliance he has showed during his career. Those performances in his early days in the sport suggested Australia’s first champion since Alan Jones was waiting to be crowned. And funnily enough, the nexus point of Ricciardo’s on-track career carries some level of synchronicity with his emergence on Drive to Survive, given his switch from Red Bull to Renault as one of the show’s first key storylines.
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Across a breakout 2014 season – his first with Red Bull after graduating from Toro Rosso to fill the seat of countryman Mark Webber – it was the Australian who pounced whenever an otherwise dominant Mercedes team of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg slipped. Topping the podium in Canada, Hungary and Belgium, he won the only three races not claimed by the Mercedes duopoly that season and finished third in the championship, overshadowing his team-mate and then-defending four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel. And while the raw talent of Max Verstappen would become apparent in the years ahead following Vettel’s move to Ferrari, it was Ricciardo who was seen as the most likely of the Red Bull drivers to challenge – if they could figure out their underpowered Renault power unit.
His apogee arrived at Monaco in 2018, when after qualifying in pole position he managed to hold off a chasing pack for 50 laps despite a failing power unit and only six of his eight gears working to claim the win on the famous circuit. A brilliant drive was followed by an iconic celebration as he swan dived, arms aloft, into the Red Bull swimming pool.
But the subsequent move to Renault proved curios and ill-fated – despite some notable podiums – as did a subsequent switch to McLaren. Though his star continued to rise off the track, there were perceptions of a loss of killer instinct as he struggled to adapt his aggressive, late-braking style to the McLaren.
One final victory came at Monza in 2021, perhaps a teasing hint at what might have happened had he never left Red Bull, but the emergence of Lando Norris served to bring his time with the team to a premature end. He returned to AlphaTauri/RB in 2023 – first as a reserve and then replacing Nyck de Vries – but a fairy-tale comeback never materialised; Yuki Tsunoda’s rise and the promise of Liam Lawson – his replacement for the rest of this season – meant the writing was on the wall.
Ultimately, Red Bull’s reluctance to provide clarity before Singapore denied Ricciardo the send-off he deserved. But he ended his career as a major part of F1’s story for a decade; his absence from any telling would leave it incomplete. That influence takes different forms and was delivered in different ways but it was always genuinely Ricciardo. And it was genuinely wild and wonderful. – Guardian
