Ricciardo eager for summer break after “not the six months I wanted”

2022 Hungarian Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by and

Daniel Ricciardo is eagerly anticipating the month-long break between the Hungarian and Belgian grands prix after a disappointing start to his second season at McLaren.

After finishing 15th in Hungary, a lap down after collecting a five-second time penalty for colliding with Lance Stroll, the McLaren driver Ricciardo said he was “so happy to have a break.”

He goes into the summer break having contributed just 19 of the 95 points McLaren has scored over the opening 13 races. He admitted it was “not the six months I wanted” and was looking forward to relaxing over the four-week August rest period.

“I need it,” said Ricciardo after Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix. “More so because it hasn’t been a good six months.

“But even if the season was going awesome, I think a break is still nice, just to get away. F1 these days, it’s intense. Even the hotels, they’re full of people and these kind of weekends are just so full-on that I think just getting away from the circus for a few weeks is going to be really nice.”

Ricciardo splits his time during the season between the United Kingdom where McLaren is based and his property in the USA, and usually visits his home country during the off-season.

“To be honest, switching normally gives me a natural reset to a point where I imagine, say 10 days, two weeks into the break, I would have kind of got the holiday out of my system, and then I’ll build that hunger back again.

“I kind of unnaturally think about it after getting time off. That’s normally how it works for me. Again, go out, be with friends, drink some beers, have fun. And then I’ll feel like I’ll get to the point where I start to feel, not guilty but just like ‘alright, time to turn it on again’. Then it’s kind of a natural switch that’ll come back in, probably after 14 days.”

Last month Ricciardo firmly rejected speculation he could find lose his McLaren drive a year early. He is currently in the second season of a three-year deal to drive for the team, but aside from a surprise win at Monza last year the expected results have largely failed to materialise.

Meanwhile Alpine reserve driver Oscar Piastri yesterday surprisingly rejected his team’s claim he will race from them next year. His manager Mark Webber is rumoured to be looking at placing him elsewhere, and McLaren would be an appealing option if a place can be found for him.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2022 F1 season

Browse all 2022 F1 season articles

Author information

Ida Wood
Often found in junior single-seater paddocks around Europe doing journalism and television commentary, or dabbling in teaching photography back in the UK. Currently based...
Claire Cottingham
Claire has worked in motorsport for much of her career, covering a broad mix of championships including Formula One, Formula E, the BTCC, British...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

38 comments on “Ricciardo eager for summer break after “not the six months I wanted””

  1. Guy needs to give it up. This is getting boring now!

    1. Pretty sure it is the reporters constantly asking him the question, I’ve no doubt this isn’t a media release from Dan.

      That said, if I was McLaren I would keep him until Monza; you’d have to give him a go at the only circuit he mastered last year wouldn’t you?

  2. Hope he’s quicker at getting to the sunbeds than he is on track.

  3. His mental attitude regarding his holidays has changed since Piastri’s tweet, I think.

    1. Yeah, you might be on something… I mean, unless a big miracle happen, Danny is done at McLaren… He’s clearly mentally drained, but also, the team probably don’t believe in him anyway (and Zakky ol’boy ain’t a saint). 2 years of very poor performances, being regularly very far away from Lando takes a toll on you.

      So what if the best that could happen To RIC is that indeed Piastri goes to McLaren and that he gets a drive back at Alpine… Full reset, back into an environment were he’s been successful in the past… No guarantee of success, but a real “second chance”… Starting to hope for that.

      1. Yup. He has to do a Perez.

  4. This man needs at least a 500 days of summer break.

    1. Agree with that, 30 seems very little.

  5. Yeah, I think he’s done. Vandoorne’d by Lando.

  6. Didn’t know he has a property in USA. Indycar move may make sense then.

    So if Ricciardo is replaced by Piastri, Alpine will have to get a new driver and we will have another debutant in F1. I can then see Sargeant replacing Albon, Albon replacing Gasly, Gasly to Alpine happening.
    Everyone is then happy. Alpine gets a fast French driver, Albon gets an upgrade, Sargeant gets a debut, Gasly gets a decent exit from RB / AT, Williams still keeps Latifi money, RB / AT solves its Gasly problem while getting an almost equivalent driver in the form of Albon.

    The only problem with making this happen is Sargeant’s super license status is unknown. Can he do Super Formula / some tests to ensure he gets the super-license irrespective of his F2 championship position. If not, Hulkenburg can return with Williams for a year, may be

    1. Ironically, the losers in the above scenario would be the 2 drivers who started it all. Alonso goes to a much slower team in Aston Martin and Piastri goes up against a super fast well entrenched Norris in Mclaren. :)

    2. @sumedhvidwans Albon will continue at Williams in all likelihood & Gasly got confirmed for next season post-Canadian GP, so getting him would be easier said than done.
      Sargeant would only replace Latifi & he’ll become eligible if he finishes 6th at the lowest & he’s quite unlikely to end up below 6th anymore.
      Hulkenberg won’t become a regular driver anymore, given how long he’s been away from active racing, not only F1 but also generally.
      People should be realistic with their expectations.

    3. Gasly to Alpine? Never going to happen as long as Ocon is the team mate. They dislike each other and that’s an understatement. Ocon isn’t a team player and is just a mediocre driver. Never understood why Alpine gave this guy a multi year deal.

      Albon stays at Williams. Piastri to RB or MCL? I am hoping RB but I guess it’s MCL replacing RIC.

  7. I hope McLaren and Danny ric split up on good terms (unlike the Lewis Hamilton 2012 fiasco when he and key personal like Paddy Lowe left the team at the end of the season and their on track performance nose dived) but what do people expect Dan to do? just walk out of the team? That is unlikely and there are many unanswered questions:

    He’s contracted to race next year and it would be stupid to walk away and lose out on millions left on his contract.

    Would Mclaren buy out his contract to get rid of him when the group is already in massive debt and it isn’t financially responsible to thrown 10 million away? McLaren isn’t the same company when Ron Dennis was running a tight ship with Imperial Tobacco and Vodafone sponsorship money, they already sold the spaceship Woking HQ in a leaseback deal and sold McLaren applied technologies to raise desperately needed cash. Also Danny is not obliged to accept any offer and can run down his contract which he is entitled to do.

    Could Danny race for Enstone gp again as a ‘loan’ where alpine pay a percentage of his contract still remaining at McLaren and Oscar takes his seat? That would make more sense because Oscar will be on a tiny rookie contract saving the team money and he is arguably faster so will reward the team with more points and finishing higher up the WCC thus more prize money..

    I understand that zak brown is the poundland version of Ron Dennis but McLaren need to find a way to get Oscar in the car asap!

    1. Also Danny is not obliged to accept any offer and can run down his contract which he is entitled to do.

      You don’t know the specificities of any performance clauses in his contract to make this assumption…

    2. Discarding Daniel is very easy by paying him what i heard of $25M. But i don’t think they want that.

    3. Paddy Lowe lol. What a joke that guy is. Him leaving McLaren was a blessing.

    4. @ccpbioweapon Staying at a team where you not wanted and you’re already performing poorly? Just sounds an unlikely scenario, they’ll come to some arrangement for Ricciardo to leave surely. If he insists on staying, can they not just put a ‘reserve driver’ in his place and leave him out to pasture for a year?

  8. He doesn’t need a break / he needs to be in the simulator banging in the miles and working out where he can improve his pace.

    1. I think the drivers are not allowed to practice during the break (they can workout and stay in shape, just not do F1 related exercise)

  9. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
    3rd August 2022, 13:27

    I wasn’t even paying attention to McLaren’s points but Ricciardo has 19 points to Norris’s 76. He has scored 1 point for every 4 points that Lando has scored.

    The worst part of this is that he’s constantly reminded of his performance, has to explain it to the press, has to discuss it in meetings etc, etc. It doesn’t help you improve.

    He’s not going to get redemption at McLaren. It’s debatable if he will have a chance at all at redemption.

    We’d all love to see him performing better.

    1. @freelittlebirds as an Aussie it’s hard to watch.

      It was hard to watch Webber get demolished by Vettel, but at least he was in a competitive car and Vettel was simply demolishing everyone—and Webber retired from a top team still bagging good results.

      Unsure where the Danny magic has gone, but I miss his confidence to throw the car around and brake super late like he did at Red Bull.

    2. Wow, that makes him look worse than the feeling I had about him, didn’t think he had 1\4 of his team mate’s points.

  10. He indeed needs a break & BTW, he officially resides in Monaco & while he may have a so-called free time house in the US (maybe also in England), I doubt he spends much time there during the seasons, given how much he travels.
    Perez & Steiner officially reside in NA, though.

  11. Electroball76
    3rd August 2022, 14:18

    So will it be Haas, Alfa, Williams or Alpine? Or out of F1 altogether?

    1. @Electroball76
      Zhou & Mick will continue in their respective current teams in all likelihood, & Williams’ options are also pretty clear-cut.

  12. I think Ricciardo has a fantastic future as part of a race broadcast team but I don’t see how he fits in at the top of F1 anymore. That is quite hard for me to write because I have been a fan of his for his entire career but I don’t think he has “it” anymore as a driver in a top team. Sure, he could go to a backmarker team and rake in some money for a few years, but I’m not sure I see him going down that route. He wants to fight for wins at the very least. If whoever picks up the TV broadcasting rights in the US doesn’t use the Sky feed in the future, they would be absolute fools to not hire Ricciardo for their team. He loves the US and the US loves him.

  13. For whatever reason, it didn’t work.
    He has a contract but for the sake of his career, he should look for a way out or he may very well go from there straight into a forced retirement, as he is looking so bad, nobody would dare to waste their time with him.

  14. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I think Ricciardo is a great driver. I think his problem is that Norris is an excellent one. I have a feeling we’re going to see McLaren in the same situation Red Bull was in with Gasly and Albon for a bit.

    1. Which proves his leaving red bull decision was bad: at red bull he wasn’t a gasly or albon, he was at least a perez.

    2. That doesnt explain his poor form at McLaren.
      “Great” drivers don’t look average compared to excellent ones. They look great.

      Next to Norris he looks like a driver who’s there only because his father owns the team.

  15. When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month Or even your year, but
    I’ll be there for you…

  16. Being shown up by his very modest teammate.

  17. It was just yesterday when he won at Monaco and won over Vettel and Verstappen..

  18. I know Piastri is confident but nudging McLaren to drop Riccardo and putting himself up against Norris as a rookie sounds like a recipe for career suicide.

    If I were Alpine/McLaren, I’d be looking to farm him out for a season or two and securing an option on his services in the future.

  19. It’s a really strange one.

    Given the data that is collected, there should be a ton showing exactly where Dan is so slow compared to Lando.

    Time is all about corners, can’t be all that hard to analyse and compare braking points, corner entry speed, exit speed, pressure on the loud pedal on exit etc and break it down to some items to tick off.

    Since it hasn’t been that simple, I’ve come to the conclusion that for some reason, the cars no longer behave like they used to whether it be optimum line or grip under acceleration. They’re so different that the older fast drivers just can’t get past their muscle memory and can’t drive the cars to the limit because their brain is telling them it just won’t work.

    I don’t believe any conspiracies about drivers getting different cars, I do believe that Lando has a lot of talent, but not that much more than his team mate.

    That leaves us with Dan consistently failing (and badly) to extract the best out of the car. In Golf, they call it the yips, and some golfers never recover from them. Sadly I suspect that will be the case for Dan. I really hope I’m wrong, I really do, but thee just doesn’t seem to be the sort of progress that one would expect.

  20. Ricci is out. Piastri replaces him at McLaren in 2023.

    1. Yeah

      driver Ricciardo said he was “so happy to have a break.”

      and in the evening he found he’ll be using the break to find a ride for next year.

Comments are closed.