Ever since his debut season with Red Bull in 2014, Daniel Ricciardo was considered world champion material. In fact, he is arguably the only driver to have matched Max Verstappen during their days together at Red Bull.
Naturally, the Honey Badger’s dream was to win the world title, but it never materialized. Stints with Renault and McLaren between 2019 and 2022 completely tarnished his reputation and crumbled his resolve.
Even a return to the Red Bull stable didn’t fulfill those expectations as he was sacked after the 2024 Singapore GP.
Looking back on his career, the 35-year-old does admit he never really reached his potential but has made peace with that fact.
Beat reigning champion Sebastian Vettel in his own team.
Beat generational talent Max Verstappen.
Beat Nico Hulkenberg.
Destroyed Esteban Ocon.
8 brilliant wins in an era of domination.
One of the best never to win a title and a great character. Daniel Ricciardo pic.twitter.com/dLdZ0zNfLF
— TFC (@thef1content) September 24, 2024
“I got close, that’s okay. Maybe my ego would have been big [with a world title]. We don’t want that, so I have no regrets,” he said as quoted in episode eight of Season 7 of Netflix’s Drive to Survive docu-series.
After getting the axe from McLaren at the end of the 2022 season, Ricciardo was given a second chance to dream about winning the world title again. Drafted in mid-season in 2023 to replace Nyck de Vries at RB, Ricciardo knew that if he performed well, he could get a call to the main Red Bull team again.
What does life hold for Ricciardo after F1?
Red Bull never wanted Ricciardo to drive for their sister team, whose responsibility is to give opportunities to young drivers of their academy and the Australian is anything but a young driver. Their main purpose of getting him back into the sport was to see whether he was good enough to replace Sergio Perez on the main team.
Since Ricciardo failed to meet expectations, he ultimately lost his RB seat. With the pressure so high on Ricciardo, he even wondered whether it was worth giving it his all, knowing that there was no guarantee he could achieve his dream of returning to Red Bull and fighting for the championship again.
With Ricciardo unlikely to return to F1, he has taken up other projects. He has been busy promoting his fashion and lifestyle brand Enchante. His most recent project is to launch offline stores in prominent locations.
But what will be interesting to see is if he will ever return to the paddock. If he does, it will most probably not be in a driver role. But his commercial value is immense and might prompt a debut in the presenter or commentator’s box soon.
