Amid his F1 exile, Daniel Ricciardo rebuilds himself for a return: ‘I know I’m not done’ (2024)

The light at the end of the pit lane turns green and a line of cars slowly files onto the track. Champions Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, race winners Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, George Russell and Sergio Pérez — the biggest stars racing for the biggest teams — begin qualifying for the 2023 Australian Grand Prix.

Daniel Ricciardo has beaten all of them. An eight-time grand prix winner, he knows what it takes to go up against the very best and win.

But on this day he is a spectator. Standing in the Red Bull garage wearing jeans and a team-branded fleece, headphones on, listening to the radio chatter between the engineers in his role as reserve driver, Ricciardo’s body tells him he’s in the wrong place.

He looks down and notices his feet, involuntarily, tapping. The pressure, the excitement, the nerves of qualifying, where drivers put everything on the line for the quickest lap possible, has Ricciardo wishing he were out there.

“I was antsy,” Ricciardo told The Athletic hours later. “I did envy the moment a little bit.”

Ricciardo, with 232 races under his belt, was a spectator by choice. After splitting with McLaren at the end of last season with a year remaining on his contract, a mutual decision after a season of poor results and struggle for performance, he opted to take a year out of racing in F1. He returned to his former team, Red Bull, as a reserve driver. Stepping away for a year or two has worked for drivers before: Alain Prost came back from a sabbatical to win his fourth world championship, in 1993; Fernando Alonso took two years out and is now an F1 front-runner again.

The reduced stakes of the reserve driver role at Red Bull are giving Ricciardo the chance to reset and rebuild his knocked confidence. Most importantly, the time away is helping him figure out whether he really wants to return to F1 full-time at all.

As The Athletic saw and heard first-hand while spending time with Ricciardo during his first race back in the F1 paddock in Australia earlier this month, as much as he is enjoying the benefits of his new-found freedom, he remains hungry to get back to his race-winning peak.

“Deep down, I know I’m not done,” he said.

Rewind five years, and the idea of Ricciardo being without a race seat was unthinkable.

After rising through Red Bull’s junior ranks and impressing for its sister F1 team, Toro Rosso, Ricciardo was handed a seat alongside reigning four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel for 2014. He outscored Vettel in their first season together at Red Bull, notching three wins in a year dominated by Mercedes and gaining acclaim for his aggressive overtakes and bravery under braking. He did it all with a smile and buzzing personality that stood him out from his peers.

“I’ve never won a world championship,” Ricciardo said. “But for a big part of my career, I was at least fighting for wins or podiums. I always considered myself as good, if not better, than everyone else.”

By 2018, Ricciardo stood among the elite racers in F1, his status no clearer than when winning F1’s most famous race, the Monaco Grand Prix, with a failing engine. But within Red Bull, Ricciardo felt a growing shift toward his young teammate, Verstappen, who had stepped up to the senior squad in 2016. A crash between them in Baku, in which Red Bull appeared to side with Verstappen, told Ricciardo it was time to look for a new opportunity.

That came with Renault. It was a major storyline in the debut season of Netflix’s “Drive to Survive,” as Ricciardo considered a step down to a less competitive car, but with a team on which he could be the leader, and which he could help build into a front-runner. Ricciardo’s performances remained at a high level during his two-year stint with the team, but he was limited to only two podiums — both in 2020 — before jumping ship to McLaren.

There, things never quite clicked. Ricciardo struggled to master the intricacies of the McLaren car, which requires a very particular driving style. A shock win at Monza in 2021 appeared to signal Ricciardo’s return to the top table, but it proved an outlier. With young teammate Lando Norris outperforming him and Ricciardo showing little sign of progress in the early part of last season, McLaren began to explore bringing an early end to his contract, due to expire at the end of 2023.

Only Ricciardo had the power to terminate the contract, but he sensed it was time to take a break. He became the highest-profile free agent on the driver market, but few available seats interested him. With his confidence knocked, the idea of more of the same, mired in F1’s competitive midfield, didn’t appeal. Once a settlement was agreed with McLaren and his contract terminated, Ricciardo decided to take a timeout from racing. He had some things to figure out.

“I don’t think he knows exactly why it didn’t click,” said Zak Brown, McLaren’s CEO. “Sometimes, drivers just need to recharge their batteries.”

Ricciardo may be known for his life-of-the-party, bubbling personality seen so clearly on “Drive to Survive”. But the struggles of last year sapped a lot of that energy, causing Ricciardo to see an impact on life away from the track. “The bad days would then flow into my weeks,” he said. “Then I would have bad days as normal days when I’m not at the track.

“I was just not a good person at times to be around.”

pic.twitter.com/ZrPvJy7tB5

— Daniel Ricciardo (@danielricciardo) August 24, 2022

Ricciardo’s priority once finishing the season was to put more time into his friends and family. For the first time in his adult life, he was living without a schedule, without a next race to work toward. After finishing the season in Abu Dhabi last November, he went straight back home to Perth in Australia for a couple of months. It was the longest he’d spent in one place since the start of the pandemic.

He then spent time in the United States, including a trip to the Super Bowl in Arizona, and in Monaco. He made it to Australia for the GP via Las Vegas, where he’d arranged the bachelor party for Australian snowboarder Scotty James (who is marrying Chloe Stroll, the sister of F1 driver Lance). “For what Vegas could be, I would say we behaved well,” Ricciardo said, admitting it felt “kind of mischievous” to be in Vegas the week before his home grand prix in Australia, so focused he’d been in previous years.

Through the early part of his winter off, Ricciardo didn’t even make plans to work out. Part of him wanted to see if he’d be happy to just lay on the couch and watch movies all day, deliberately distancing himself from the all-consuming world of F1. He didn’t even know if he’d bother watching the first race of the year in Bahrain. Would he care?

But while spending some quiet time alone in Monaco, Ricciardo felt the fire coming back. He wanted to be back in the gym, lifting weights, feeling good about himself. And of course he cared about F1. He’s not missed watching a single practice, qualifying or race session this year on TV.

It was all a sign to start thinking about getting back behind the wheel.

Ricciardo never wanted to sever his ties to F1 altogether. He had a number of options on the table for a reserve role in 2023, which would allow him to retain some involvement in the F1 world without the pressures of a race seat. Mercedes was known to have an interest in working with him. But a return to Red Bull was always going to make the most sense, being the environment that brought out the best in Ricciardo all those years ago.

The familiarity of the team didn’t stop him from feeling tense ahead of his first simulator session back. “I was certainly nervous,” Ricciardo said. “I was like, ‘Maybe (the magic) is gone?’” It would be the truest test yet of whether he still had the spark that once made him so hard to beat.

His anxiety quickly abated. With every lap he completed, Ricciardo felt his confidence returning. The Red Bull car characteristics, from its handling to its feel under braking, were like home. His old race engineer, Simon Rennie, was on hand to run the session, making it just like the glory days, laughs and all. “It was like we never left,” Ricciardo said.

As enjoyable as the session might have been, the performance was less encouraging. “It was clear when he came back, he’d picked up some habits that we didn’t recognize as the Daniel that had left us,” said Christian Horner, Red Bull’s team principal. Ricciardo had adjusted his driving style in his efforts to tame the tricky McLaren, and he didn’t gel with the Red Bull car like he used to.

But the spark that was building soon began to ignite. Drivers hardly relish simulator sessions, spending hours on end completing virtual laps to refine the car setup and get a feel for new developments. Yet they became highlights of Ricciardo’s weeks, further confirming his desire to return. He’d keep asking for another lap. And another. And another. The rate of progress over the next two months, if charted, looked vertical. The performances became “far more reminiscent of the Daniel that we knew” according to Horner.

Ricciardo was back in business.

• The Athletic has coverage of every Formula 1 race this season

It came as a relief. His fear the magic might have gone faded as the times improved and his mojo returned. “I don’t want to say it too confidently, because it is just the sim,” Ricciardo said, knowing the chance to drive the actual car won’t come until a tire test in the fall (often completed by reserve drivers to give feedback on the updated tire designs). “But it was really encouraging. It was a sigh of relief as well for me, that I still can do it, and in the right environment, I can kind of get back to my old self.”

Red Bull is committed to making that happen. As valuable as a driver of his profile may be from a marketing point of view, Ricciardo is a far greater asset to the team than that. The Australia weekend saw him take part in all of the engineering debriefs, analyzing the car data along with Verstappen and Pérez, who joined Red Bull in 2021 and has established himself as Verstappen’s strongest teammate since Ricciardo.

Although Ricciardo said he was “trying not to make too much noise” given the focus on the needs of the race drivers, once the debrief was done, he would take the engineers to one side and ask questions to help get a better understanding of the car. He spent sessions either on the pit wall, listening to all of the radio communications, or inside the garage. He’s a firm part of the race team.

Ricciardo is also enjoying the selflessness of the role, something he did not feel when he was last at Red Bull, perhaps as a consequence of the pressures of competing at the top in F1. “I come at it from a different point of view now,” he said. “Even looking back at 2018 … it was just all about me, me, me. In all these young drivers, I see it. That’s just how we are.

“At times, I reacted a little too selfishly to a bad weekend. Now, I’m back with the team, but I’d say it’s a very selfless role. I’ve got no hidden agenda. There’s no ego. I’m not too proud. I’m trying to build myself back up.”

The first weekend working with Red Bull again at a grand prix was always going to be a big one for Ricciardo, but especially at his home event. In many ways, it was like he’d never been away.

“Can you catch?”

The woman’s face lights up as Ricciardo addresses her. She responds with a speechless nod before he gently tosses her a signed tennis ball, which he’s just used for a reaction test video for social media.

She catches the ball cleanly. And immediately bursts into tears.

Seeing this reaction, Ricciardo quickly gestures for her to be brought onto the stage. She makes her way forward, shoulders shuddering as the tears continue, and is guided by security to meet her hero. Ricciardo gives her a go at a reaction test, used to sharpen up before a race, dropping tennis balls from eye level before she snatches out and catches them, sparking claps from the watching crowd. They have a brief chat and pose for photos before she returns to her friends, beaming in disbelief.

It is the Ricciardo effect in full swing. In the midst of a hectic schedule of fan event appearances on the Saturday in Melbourne, he makes time for as many fans as he can. In the space of a few hours, he stops for over 100 selfies or autographs — race programs, T-shirts, caps, phone cases, you name it — even if just for a second, to share words of banter or thanks. His pull is magnetic.

“Daniel wants to give to everybody,” says one of the Red Bull team members shepherding Ricciardo through the crowds.

Ricciardo later admits he can find the fan interactions quite intense at times. But he knows the support typically comes from a very good place. “I try to remind myself about being in that position,” he says. Ricciardo remembers simply making eye contact with MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi when attending a race as a 16-year-old fan in 2005, and how much that meant to him. “I was once a bit strange too!” he says. “So I get it.”

From F1’s VIP Paddock Club to Red Bull’s Energy Station hospitality and finally the fan forum, Ricciardo packs a lot into a couple of hours. All the way, he is flanked by security guards to keep the path clear, a tough challenge at times. To quote one: “I feel like it’s Christmas — everyone wants a piece of him!” Cameras from “Drive to Survive” are also along for the ride; expect Ricciardo to feature in season six when it drops next spring.

The cheers that go up when Ricciardo meets his biggest audience at the fan forum are huge. The crowd comfortably stands at a couple of thousand, all to see a driver who isn’t even racing. Some have waited all day to get a spot at the front of the barriers. Ricciardo revels in the warmth they show, kicking some signed Aussie Rules footballs into the crowd and answering their questions. He finishes by taking a selfie that will later be featured on his Instagram page.

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A post shared by Daniel Ricciardo (@danielricciardo)

No bigger cheer goes up than when the emcee asks the crowd if they want to see Ricciardo racing in Melbourne next year. Even with a new Australian on the grid in McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, Ricciardo is the big fan draw. As Horner puts it: “Even though he’s not driving, he’s still probably the most popular driver here.”

The fan reaction amuses Ricciardo. “It was like I was still racing,” he says. “People were even yelling out like, ‘Good luck’ and stuff, and I was like ‘… All right, maybe I’ll tell them I’m not racing?’”

But he did have to go through a few steps just in case he did need to race. As a reserve driver, Ricciardo had to be prepared in case either Verstappen or Pérez were ruled out. A rare occurrence, but an important one to cover off.

It meant Ricciardo had to don a race suit and get in the Red Bull RB19 car in the garage to complete a seat fitting, the lining of the co*ckpit being molded to fit each driver’s body. He took part in the drivers’ briefing with the rest of the grid, essentially a pre-event meeting with the race officials. Ricciardo welcomed the chance to “talk a bit of s—” with the drivers he’d been going wheel-to-wheel with for years. He’d missed the camaraderie. “There were a few warm welcomes,” he says. “Lando and I gave each other a bit of a hug, so that was nice. Carlos (Sainz) and Charles (Leclerc) too. Maybe they miss me!”

He had slipped seamlessly back into the F1 world, so much so that Horner doubted Ricciardo would need much coaxing into the car if he had to race: “I’d say he’s about 10 minutes away from being ready.”

Australia was always going to give Ricciardo a good read of whether he wanted to chase a return. It was also why he was so set on throwing himself into as much as possible over the race weekend.

“I’m trying to put myself in the mindset of, if I was competing, how would I feel? Where’s my energy at?” he says. “I want all those answers now so I can get into next year with a clear plan.”

Ricciardo isn’t fully committed just yet to pursuing a racing comeback. “I’m glad I’m not foaming at the mouth, because then I’d probably be questioning s—. ‘Should I have taken the year off?’” he says. “But it is brewing.”

Come the start of summer, when teams begin to give serious thought to who might race for them next year, Ricciardo will know for sure what way he’s leaning. His availability on the driver market would certainly pique interest. Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer calls him “a fantastic racing driver” and said he “wouldn’t be surprised” to see Ricciardo back on the grid. Guenther Steiner, the Haas team principal, thinks “everybody will want to speak with Danny after a year off.” Even Brown, who was involved in the call to ax Ricciardo from McLaren, says: “We’d all love to see him back on the grid on a regular basis.”

But if Ricciardo does want a comeback, it won’t be at all costs. He’s not interested in racing just to race. He wants to be a front-runner again.

The competitive nature of F1 means only a few teams would make that viable. Red Bull and Ferrari have their lineups locked in for the next two years; Mercedes also looks like a closed door as it focuses on renewing Lewis Hamilton’s contract. There’s no obvious route for Ricciardo to slip back into a top team. And that’s before even considering whether one would take him on.

Thanks to his current timeout and the chance to reflect on where things went wrong, Ricciardo is confident that if a team were to want him, it would be getting a stronger, hungrier and, importantly, wiser version of an established race winner.

As bruising as the McLaren experience was, it taught Ricciardo a lot about himself. “I don’t want to say I got humbled, because that’s probably too dramatic,” he says. “I didn’t have my head up my a—. But in a way, I got humbled, and I did realize that OK, I’m not perfect.”

It’s a humility that Ricciardo is sure would only serve him well should he return. “If I was to get back on the grid, of course the hunger would be filled to the top,” he says. “But it wouldn’t be coming from a place where my ego or pride is getting in the way. It’s accepting that it’s not always going to be perfect. It’s just a reality of life.”

Regardless of the version of Ricciardo that comes back to race in F1, be it in 2024, or 2025, or maybe never, the Daniel of now is happy again; especially important for a man known for having a permanent grin on his face. His friends are quick to tell him he looks lighter and happier now than through the rottenness of 2022. “I feel it,” Ricciardo says. “But when other people that know me well recognize it, I guess it’s true.”

Sport can be cruel, particularly in a world like F1, where so many factors contribute to a driver’s performance. Yet with a bit of distance and time to reflect, Ricciardo has been finding a way to rebuild himself. The confidence is back. So is the smile.

All Daniel Ricciardo needs is a quick car. He’ll do the rest.

(Photo illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photos: Gongora/NurPhoto)