Daniel Ricciardo’s stock is at its highest since leaving Red Bull at the end of the 2018 season two years ago.
Fresh from his first podium with Renault at the Nurburgring, Ricciardo unexpectedly finished fourth in the Drivers’ Championship. The two Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas and former Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen are ahead in the standings.
McLaren’s Zach Brown and Andreas Seid, who locked up Ricciardo to a three-year deal months ago, are no doubt unhappy about the team’s future. With Lando Norris showing promising signs of improvement in his second season, the arrival of an experienced, race-winning veteran like Ricciardo felt in many ways the perfect solution to replace Carlos Sanz Jr. And with McLaren ending the season in third place, it looks like the best is yet to come for the Woking team.
Fast forward to October 2022 and it now looks like Ricciardo will be off the grid next season, although his Formula 1 career is by no means ready to end.
With Ricciardo at their team for over a year and a half, McLaren felt one of the strongest examples of buyer’s remorse any F1 team has ever experienced. Despite the best efforts of both team and drivers and a mutual desire to make the partnership work, a series of disappointing performances have left McLaren with no choice but to cut their losses – and Ricciardo’s contract is coming to an end a year early. But despite McLaren’s successor Oscar Piastre lining up, Ricciardo is currently without a seat for 2023.
Haas and Williams are the only two teams left to confirm their driver line-ups for next season – both teams sit at the wrong end of the Constructors’ Championship table, joint eighth and 10th. While the doors aren’t completely closed to Ricciardo for a place on the grid next season, he clearly has little interest in signing with two of the smaller teams on the grid.
“If he’s interested, he won’t hesitate to call me. I don’t want to chase him,” Haas Group Principal Guenther Steiner told The Associated Press yesterday.
By his own admission, Ricciardo is focusing not on next year, but on 2024. “I think the reality now is that I won’t be on the grid in 2023,” he said at Suzuka. “Now he’s trying to set it up for 2024. I think there might be some better opportunities then.”
The prospect of taking a year off next season and returning to full-time racing looks like a big gamble on Ricciardo’s part. After all, there are countless drivers who have lost their place on the Formula 1 grid in recent years and never quite found their way back to it.
Stoffel Vandoorne, Brendon Hartley, Sergey Sirtokin, Jolyon Palmer, Pascal Wehrlein, Felipe Nasr – these are just some of the names in a long list of drivers whose Formula 1 career ended earlier than they thought. This does not mean that a year out of Formula 1 is a death sentence for a driving career – far from it.
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Over the past 20 years, a total of 21 drivers have taken at least one full season out of Formula 1 after competing in at least two races the year before and returned to the grid to compete in multiple rounds the following season. In the year The 2022 season sees two such issues – Alexander Albon and Kevin Magnussen both joined the field this year after the pair did not compete in a single race in 2021.
So it wouldn’t be unusual to see Ricciardo find his way back to the grid in 2024 if he sits out next year’s Grand Prix. But where are the landing spots that the eight-time Grand Prix winner might consider worthy of his talent?
If Ricciardo is hoping for a 2024 race seat, it’s hard to see a way the ending won’t disappoint. Ferrari are much smaller than Ricciardo for their two drivers. A return to Red Bull is also unlikely, with Sergio Perez under contract until 2024 and doing well enough in his support role for Verstappen.
At Mercedes, Hamilton will have the freedom to stay with the team for as long as he wants, but George Russell knows his future at the team is entirely in his hands. Although Hamilton is mulling retirement before turning into his forties, the seven-time champion admits that Mercedes’ struggles this season have re-motivated him – with Hamilton seemingly downplaying the prospect of vacating his Mercedes seat soon.
After two runs with Renault before his evolution to Alpine, Enstone seemed the most obvious place for Ricciardo to try and re-establish his F1 career once again. However, to do so will require a great deal of pride in defying the team to join McLaren in 2020. But that path appears to have been blocked by the team signing Pierre Gasly.
With Gasly joining their team, Alpine now has two 26-year-old, marketable, race-winning French drivers with more than 200 Grands Prix experience in their cars. Unless Ocon and Gasly suffer an irreparable breakdown in their relationship – and the pair have history – it’s hard to see how Ricciardo looks like a better option for his former team.
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Alfa Romeo has followed suit in recent seasons by employing a seasoned driver at the front of the field and pairing it with a promising rookie. As the Sauber team moves away from Alfa Romeo and into a new era – certainly Audi – could Ricciardo be an attractive prospect for 2024?
As always, Formula 1 is political. Zhou Guanyu proved to be a more than adequate starter in 2022 and earned a second season with Alfa Romeo the following year. But beyond his driving skills, the fact that Zhou is the first Chinese driver to compete in Formula 1 gives him a unique business acumen that no other driver on the grid enjoys. While Ricciardo remains one of the most recognizable and iconic characters on the F1 grid, it may not be enough to earn him a seat with Saber, especially after one year.
If Sebastian Vettel doesn’t decide to retire, Aston Martin looks set to be a strong contender for Ricciardo for 2024. However, the team’s surprise signing of Fernando Alonso to a multi-year deal from next season means it may not be a Silverstone team. Optional.
With Lance Stroll relishing the chance to stay with the team as long as he wants, Alonso’s seat will be the only real possibility. But while 2023 will be as challenging as 2022 for Aston Martin at times, Alonso is unlikely to throw in the towel and walk away after a year. His commitment to the team shows his confidence in their long-term development. So there is little chance that Alonso will abandon his pursuit of a championship at Aston Martin before the massive investment he makes to the team really starts to pay off.
Naturally, a return to AlphaTauri would make no sense for Ricciardo, AlphaTauri or Red Bull’s junior driver program, leaving only Haas and Williams – the two options still remaining for 2023. Without a dramatic turnaround in performance for either team, it’s hard to see how Haas or Williams will be more appealing to Ricciardo at this time next year than they are now.
It’s hard to imagine that these final four rounds of the 2022 season could be the final four races in F1. But unless something unexpected happens in the next 12 months – something that can never be ruled out in Formula 1 – it is difficult to see how the possibility of Daniel Ricciardo returning to the grid in 2024 will unfold.
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