Back in the early 2010s, Daniel Ricciardo had “world champion” written all over him and those were some of his glory days. He is one of the top Formula One drivers to come out from the Aussie country.
In fact, if you are a sports bettor obsessed with Formula One, then all you had to do was cruise through the best Australian betting sites to find his name prominent in every sportsbook that had F1 as an offering.
Ricciardo, a multiple Grand Prix winner, is now widely considered to be past due for retirement from the paddock. It’s difficult to believe that a driver can come back from so many poor team choices, mechanical failures, and failures to adjust his driving style. We’ll examine Daniel Ricciardo’s ascent and decline in Formula One in this article.
Ricciardo was born on July 1, 1989. From a young age, he was very interested in karting, and this soon turned into a love for more speed, more challenges, and the romance that came with being an F1 driver. Before moving to Europe to try to make it in Formula One, he won several national championships in his home country of Australia.
He started his pro career in 2011 by being part of the HRT team where he had a solid 1-year season. Ricciardo was hired by the Toro Rosso squad in 2012, where he kept wowing the team with his driving abilities. The Red Bull Racing team, one of the most successful teams in the sport, promptly recruited him after he quickly won the hearts of the fans.
Ricciardo’s breakthrough season came in 2014. He finished the season in third place in the championship standings after taking three victories, including the legendary Monaco Grand Prix. In that year, he consistently finished on the podium further cementing his reputation as a top driver. He kept up his impressive play in 2015, finishing third in the championship rankings once more, and in 2016, he came in fourth.
However, in 2017, Ricciardo’s fortunes started to change. At every turn, Mercedes and Ferrari were faster than Red Bull, and Ricciardo couldn’t keep up. That season, Ricciardo dropped to fifth place with only one race win. This marked the beginning of a downturn in Ricciardo’s career.
In 2018, Ricciardo made a shock move to the Renault team, which had many seasons of disappointing failures and was still trying to rebuild both the team and the brand. Sadly, things didn’t turn out as planned for the driver as the new team wasn’t as competitive. He won only one race in 2018 and one in 2019, with his overall standing dropping to seventh position.
The 2020 season was another disappointing year for Ricciardo, as the COVID-19 pandemic caused the season to be heavily disrupted. Ricciardo struggled to find form and finished the season in ninth place in the championship standings. The 2021 season was even worse for Ricciardo and Renault. He couldn’t find his footing with them, and that meant that the season ended with him in eighth place, a far cry from his days with Red Bull.
It was not all bad, though. Along with Lando Norris, he joined McLaren for the 2021 and 2022 Formula One seasons. At the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, he won his maiden race while driving for McLaren. Ricciardo was named a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2022 Australia Day Honours. This was after the 2021 season.
Ricciardo’s decline in form has been attributed to several factors. The move he made to Renault wasn’t the best because at that time, the team didn’t have good form. Renault was unable to extract its maximum potential from their car, nor was he able to match his driving style to Renault, as the car setup was completely different from Red Bull.
Second, F1 has seen a huge and intense increase in competition, with unique driving skills represented in each grid position, making it even more difficult for drivers like Ricciardo to stand out from the pack.
Finally, no longer able to rely on the late brake overtake, Ricciardo’s lack of pack left him at the back of the field.
In 2023, after four erratic seasons away from Red Bull with Renault and McLaren, Ricciardo is back with his previous team in the third driver position. This will involve commercial and administrative duties but less weekend work. After 11 years in Formula 1, he is insistent that he wants some time off to regroup, and his main focus this year is helping the team.
Ricciardo will have one thing on his mind for sure in 2026: the debut of Audi. To do well in the new era of racing, the German manufacturer’s F1 team will need a well-liked and skilled driver to lead them, and Ricciardo, despite his setbacks, is still both. A return to form could set up Ricciardo perfectly to be Audi’s guy once they are on the grid, but he will likely need to have raced somewhere in 2024 and 2025 to be in the running.
Whether F1 is finished with Daniel Ricciardo remains to be seen, but many are hoping for a comeback similar to that of Sergio Perez’s epic return in the 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix.
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