Daniel Ricciardo has admitted that he is "grateful" that Red Bull made the tough call to end his Formula 1 career in a surprisingly candid interview with Jim Farley. The Australian's time in F1 wrapped up after the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix, when Liam Lawson replaced him at Racing Bulls for the remainder of the season.
It marked an abrupt end to a journey that began within the Red Bull family, starting with HRT before graduating to Toro Rosso in 2012. Promoted to the senior Red Bull team in 2014, the Honey Badger went on to score seven Grand Prix victories and looked destined for future Championship success.
Ricciardo shocked everyone by leading Red Bull, and later spells at Renault (2019-2020) and McLaren (2021-2022) followed. However, his time at McLaren highlighted a clear decline as he struggled to match his teammate, rising star Lando Norris.
Oscar Piastri replaced Ricciardo at McLaren in 2022, and a surprise Red Bull return followed—as a reserve driver—before he replaced Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri in 2023.
His comeback was derailed by a hand fracture in a practice crash at Zandvoort, with Lawson stepping in for five races. Ricciardo recovered to finish the 2023 season and retained the seat into 2024, but speculation that he might be called back up to Red Bull ultimately came to nought, and he was ultimately dropped from the team now known as Racing Bulls.
"I definitely had to try and understand a lot the last 12 months about the career coming to an end, and it is like timing," Ricciardo said of that time in his F1 career. "You know you aren’t really going to get it back – once it is gone, it’s gone for the most part. So, ’22 I struggled a lot [in] my second year at McLaren, so they let me go. [In] ’23 I started without a seat, and that was like, 'Is this maybe it, do I call it now?'"
"But I knew there was still some burning desire in me," he continued. "Second or third race in, I broke my hand, and it was such a nothing accident, but I missed however many races. [I] think I was out for 10 weeks or something. I’ve never really hurt myself racing all these years and I have a silly crash, and is this a bit of a sign? Should I quit while I’m ahead, really?"
"[After the crash] there was still unfinished business, so I pushed through it, and I lasted another year in F1 and then ultimately got let go. That was the reality at the time. But I think once that happened, I had to...let’s say, being let go twice in the last few years, it had also taken a lot out of me. I had put a lot of my soul into it, and I did feel pretty exhausted by it."
"In reflection, I was grateful that they made the decision for me. I think it would have been hard to be like 'I’m done,'" Ricciardo said of his abrupt F1 exit. "For whatever reason, I lost a little bit of something and it is okay to admit it, it is fine." He added that, during what proved to be his retirement year, "I gave myself a lot of time to reflect on my career, to be at peace with it."
While it's a shame things didn't work out for him, Ricciardo's F1 legacy includes eight Grand Prix wins—seven with Red Bull and that memorable 2021 Italian GP triumph for McLaren—from 257 starts. Since leaving the grid, he has taken on the role of Global Ambassador for Ford Racing.