Daniel Ricciardo’s fall has puzzled the fans as well as many in the F1 paddock. From being touted as Red Bull’s next Championship contender to being sacked by its sister team RB in 2024, Ricciardo’s career has nosedived majorly, and is possibly beyond salvage. It all started with his first exit from the Milton-Keynes-based outfit.
F1 expert and open wheel driver coach Martin Villari, in an exclusive interview with The SportsRush, explained why the 35-year-old’s performances dipped, and progressively worsened over time.
Villari highlighted Ricciardo’s failure to adapt to the ever-progressing landscape of F1 as the primary reason.
“With Daniel, he struggled with that [adapting to the latest regulations]. In 2017-2018, he was competitive. But then as the cars went one direction, he couldn’t understand it and work it out.”
Ricciardo ended his first stint at Red Bull in 2019, joining Renault. An underperforming car forced him to leave the French team for McLaren. He was hoping to make his presence felt in the championship tussle.
However, by then, Ricciardo had clearly lost his edge, and pace. In the 2021 season, he was 11th, fairly decent going by his form one would imagine. However, when we consider that his teammate Lando Norris finished seventh that year, we realise much the Aussie had waned.
In hindsight, it was also the season that changed things drastically for the Perth-born driver, something Villari pointed out. He revealed that from a technical standpoint it could have been the changes that troubled him, as F1 entered a brand new era in 2022. Then again, Ricciardo could not get a hang of McLaren’s braking system too.
Daniel Ricciardo admits he ‘lost self-confidence’ during the woeful seasons at McLaren.
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The issues, however, worsened over time. Villari added:
“I believe that initially, it was a technical issue that fell into a confidence issue thereafter.”
Ricciardo and McLaren parted ways in 2023, after which the Honey Badger had to spend half a season on the sidelines before AlphaTauri (now RB) gave him a shot. However, he failed with them as well and was booted out of the team, and possibly from the sport, once again last month.
Where does Ricciardo go from here?
Because of Ricciardo’s dismal performances in 2024, RB let go of him with six races remaining, signing Liam Lawson. And with virtually no seat available for 2025, Ricciardo seems to have made peace with the fact that his time in the sport is over.
While there had been a handful of murmurs linking Ricciardo to a spot at Audi/Sauber (the teams that are yet to finalize their lineups for 2025), there was nothing concrete to suggest that it could happen.
Whether it was a loss of confidence or an inability to adapt to the new regulations, as Villari suggested, Ricciardo’s last few years in F1 was a pale shadow of his former self – a once fearless competitor who made waves during his stint at Red Bull from 2014 to 2018,
