After Daniel Ricciardo’s breakthrough season with Red Bull in 2014, many had tipped him to be a future world champion. However, ever since Max Verstappen joined him at Red Bull in 2016, the Australian did not feel comfortable on the team. Things became extremely tough for Ricciardo in 2018, after which he left the team to join Renault. The Honey Badger has now reflected upon an incident from the 2018 campaign when a scary incident involving Verstappen’s room took place.
“I scared myself in Austin 2018,” said Ricciardo according to Formula1.com as he revealed his 2018 US GP shenanigans after retiring from the race. He added, “I got back to my room and I started punching the door in my room. It was cheap material and I put my hand through it. Then my hand followed through and hit a metal bracket.”
“I scared myself in Austin 2018”
Daniel was running in 4th place but had to retire from the race after only 8 laps due to a mechanical issue. pic.twitter.com/ePxONTdFmE
— zee (@dr3zone) August 2, 2024
However, Ricciardo was still irritated and continued the destruction. He explained, “Then I kicked it, and it went through into Max’s room. He was still on track, so it was fine. When he walked back, his trainer messaged us that night and said thanks for decorating my room.”
Ricciardo retired from the 2018 US GP as his car stopped just after a few laps. The Honey Badger was running in the top five back then.
2018 was the first season in which Verstappen dominated Ricciardo. However, it wasn’t because of Ricciardo dropping form but because of the reliability of Red Bull’s car.
Ricciardo suffered from eight DNFs that season that put him on the back foot in the championship. The reliability issues he faced along with Verstappen taking over the lead driver role led to Ricciardo making a switch to Renault.
However, it turned out to be a bad decision as the Aussie struggled even more with the Renault works team. Regardless, the US GP was not the first time Ricciardo caused destruction.
Ricciardo also had a similar moment earlier in the 2018 campaign
Ricciardo finished the 2018 season with 170 points while Max Verstappen scored 249 points. With Ricciardo underperforming Verstappen for no fault of his own, the frustration built over time for him.
As a result, he decided to practice to release his frustrations. According to Fox Sports, Ricciardo said,
“In practice [Melbourne] I got the penalty for not slowing enough for that red flag so that started with putting my elbows through the door of my room. A week later I tried to channel that energy into Bahrain and my race finished after one lap…so I put my knee through the door in that one and it kind of spiralled.”
Ricciardo seemed to have lost the spark after the 2018 season. His stints at Renault and McLaren weren’t hugely successful. However, Red Bull gave him hope by putting him in the VCARB seat last year.
In order for Ricciardo to achieve his dream of returning to Red Bull, he now has another opportunity to please the bosses by performing with VCARB. While Ricciardo has failed to achieve the same so far, he has 10 more races with VCARB this year to prove that he still has what it takes to perform at the highest of levels.
