Daniel Ricciardo’s F1 career ended not with a bang, but with a simple tweet. A sad ending for the Australian driver who deserved better, but whose talent was overshadowed by the lure of money and the vain hope of growing beyond Red Bull and Max Verstappen.
He aspired to be a champion, but left as an unknown. He dreamed of being a villain, but ended up as a lackey. Daniel Ricciardo’s departure on the evening of the Singapore race was not the farewell a driver of his caliber deserved. His restrained sobs in front of the cameras and the prolonged emotion that prevented him from leaving his cockpit after his 257th and presumably last Grand Prix speak volumes about the pain the ever-smiling Australian must have felt on Sunday, seeing his Red Bull family abandon him.
The Unfeeling Departure
The Austrian team, without emotion, left him on the platform. They even let him go without a precursor statement, fired with a simple, soulless tweet from Racing Bull, without a word from the big sister, after unsportingly asking him to snatch the fastest lap point from Lando Norris at Marina Bay. They discarded him like an old sock, showing no respect for the man who had contributed to the team’s seven victories (the number of his wins with them).
Promising Beginnings
Indeed, it was this same team that gave him a leg up last year when McLaren ousted him a year earlier than his contract stipulated, even though he had helped the Woking team return to winning ways (Monza 2021). It was this same Dr. Marko, who is now being vilified for his lack of emotion, who had spotted him at Estoril in 2007 and signed him to his team, along with a certain Jean-Eric Vergne. It was this same Marko who started him in the modest Hispania team in the summer of 2011 so he could develop and hone the aggressive attack we so admired when he was fighting, almost on equal terms, against his then Red Bull teammate, Max Verstappen, who has since become a champion.
The Uncertain Atmosphere of Ricciardo’s Possible Last F1 Race in Singapore…
Remembering Daniel Ricciardo’s Legendary Career
Forget Red Bull and recall that legendary braking, repeated many times, that he inflicted on his Dutch friend in 2016 at Sepang (Malaysia), or that pole stolen from the Batavian in Mexico in 2018, forever depriving him of the record for the youngest poleman in history. Remember how, in his debut at Red Bull, after two years of training at Toro Rosso, the Australian had defeated Sebastian Vettel, the four-time reigning champion, in 2014. Not once, but three times. If Ricciardo leaves, it’s the image of the “Honey Badger” that we should remember, displayed on the back of his helmet, a nickname that the Perth native adopted as a talisman, a totem that protected him from the image of the smiling fool that some quickly wanted to stick to “Dan the Banana”.
A Stint at Renault That Took Him Away from the Top
Daniel Ricciardo was the maestro of ultra-late braking, this “dive bomb” that Piastri, his successor at McLaren, has brought back into fashion in recent weeks. A highly talented driver, much stronger than the rotten financier he thought he had become by extracting 50 million dollars from Renault for two years. His bank account was better off, but since his departure from Red Bull for the French team, his genius and even his spirit had gone.
Return to Toro Rosso
Returned last summer by Red Bull to the Toro Rosso of his beginnings, now renamed Racing Bulls, Ricciardo could do nothing. Even against his teammate Yuki Tsunoda, greatly overrated in the paddock. While the irascible Japanese scored 22 points this year, the Australian only scored 12. A misery for someone who has won eight races, including an incredible Monaco where he had to try twice, signing the fastest lap in 2018, Red Bull having forgotten his tires during his first pole in 2016, condemning him to second place that day.
The Cruel but Beautiful World of F1
At Red Bull, they could no longer wait at the risk of seeing Liam Lawson fly away whose contract was coming to an end. We will regret the way the Austrians are separating from their Australian, not the reason. Especially if the young New Zealander, much less smiling and endearing than Ricciardo, started to perform and a place was freed up next to his majesty Max, then our Frenchman from the Filière, Isack Hadjar, battling for the title in F2, would also have his chance… F1 is cruel but it can also be beautiful. This is the message that a sad Ricciardo was trying to convey on Sunday as a farewell that he did not officially have the opportunity to pronounce: “If Max wins the title by one point, I’ll have a nice Christmas present.”
