If anyone felt the pain of Daniel Ricciardo’s early ejection from McLaren as much as the man himself, it was surely the producers of Drive to Survive.
The wise-cracker with the mile-wide grin was a show favourite literally from the start of Netflix’s F1 series. Ricciardo got the full hero treatment as season one cast a sympathetic light on his career-defining decision to leave Red Bull, the team which brought him into Formula 1 and made him a grand prix winner.Five years on from that decision, Ricciardo faced the agony of the 2023 season starting without him. But his departure from McLaren also opened up a route back to a team he surely now regretted leaving in the first place.
Red Bull pounced on the opportunity to re-hire Ricciardo as a third driver. Team principal Christian Horner was quick to claim Ricciardo’s slump in form was because their rivals had failed to get the best out of him.
Meanwhile Nyck de Vries’ indifferent start at Red Bull’s second team (known as AlphaTauri at the time, now RB) offered a justification to put Ricciardo back in a race seat. Again, Red Bull moved quickly: Ricciardo was chosen to conduct a Pirelli tyre test at Silverstone and naturally the Netflix cameras were present to capture Horner beaming over his performance, telling him “you’ve got your mojo back” and confirming his return in place of de Vries.
The Drive to Survive producers could hardly have dared hope for a more perfectly scripted redemption arc, particularly as the 2023 championship offered so little on-track drama. Ricciardo’s story was given a prominent billing in the latest season where it appeared as the second episode.
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Ricciardo’s return prompted immediate speculation over the future of his latest successor at Red Bull, Sergio Perez, whose form had slumped. At the preceding race Perez failed to reach Q3 for the fifth race in a row, recording the worst five-race streak of qualifying performances for a Red Bull driver for 16 years – this in a car which by the end of the season was the most successful in F1 history.
Six weeks ago, Horner said those waiting for a decision on Red Bull’s driver line-up would have to be patient: “We don’t need to make a final decision about the line-up until much later in the year.” But it took just four more rounds for Red Bull to eliminate the alternatives to Perez from their calculations and commit to him not only for next year, but 2026 as well.
Back in April, Horner said Ricciardo needed to show “head-turning form” to make his case to be chosen as a driver for next year. The outcome has been less head-turning, more head-shaking.
If anything, Ricciardo has less cause to feel disappointed about the decision than Yuki Tsunoda, who has out-scored him at RB this year and surely felt, after four years at the junior squad, his time may have come. Had Ricciardo conclusively out-performed Tsunoda, Perez’s seat would surely be his, but that clearly hasn’t happened.
There were signs of potential from Ricciardo during his partial 2023 return, which was disrupted by his wrist-breaking crash at Zandvoort. Ricciardo showed immediate pace on his initial comeback at the Hungaroring and later gave the team its best result of the year with seventh from fourth on the grid in Mexico.
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But performances of that quality have been conspicuous by their absence this year, aside from his fourth place in the Miami Grand Prix sprint race – still his only points score after eight rounds. Ricciardo has failed to beat Tsunoda more often than not in the grands prix so far:
| BAH | SAU | AUS | JAP | CHI | MIA | EMI | MON | ||
| Ricciardo | Q |  |
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| R |  |
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With the Red Bull seats now occupied until at least 2026, barring unexpected developments, there are no obvious routes to a race-winning car for Ricciardo. But the hard truth is his performances since his return haven’t been good enough to justify one.
So what does the script have in store next for Ricciardo? Years of toil in the midfield? An early exit to work on his own F1 television production? Or will there yet be a stunning twist to complete his redemption arc and bring him back to the front?
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Tristan
5th June 2024, 12:46
Atleast he had another go after McLaren, hopefully the answers he found gives him some peace in leaving. I’d be sad to see him toil around, there’s not enough seats and too many old faces doing so as it is.
Unless of course he pulls something fantastic out of the bag for the next two thirds of the season.
BasCB (@bascb)
5th June 2024, 13:11
It would be nice to see that Tristan. But so far I’ve seen nothing much that indicates this being likely, although he could well have a few really solid races (Mexico maybe?).
PacificPR (@streydt)
5th June 2024, 16:57
I can imagine it might be hard for Daniel to stay motivated, now he knows he won’t be driving the Red Bull anymore. A charismatic character like him will surely find plenty of nice drives outside of F1, NASCAR an obvious candidate. As for RB (VCARB). Maybe Yuki would be wise to switch teams (Audi?) and they can promote Hadjar (most promising talent in F2 at the moment?) and pair him up with Lawson.
Riccard
5th June 2024, 13:29
Tsunoda is stuck in a bit of a no-man’s land. Everyone rates him as a driver, and if someone beat him comfortably, I think we’d all look at that person as a contender for a top seat.
Tsunoda himself, though, doesn’t seem to get the chances. It’s as if Tsunoda himself is the bar for being a top team driver… and that’s the one bar he will never beat.
MichaelN
5th June 2024, 14:14
Everyone rates Tsunoda? He was consistently and comprehensively beaten by Gasly, himself not a A-lister. He was quicker but not by much than De Vries and Lawson, both rookies, and has had a small(ish) edge over Ricciardo, a man unceremoniously dumped by his previous team.
Tsunoda might end up at Aston Martin to please Honda, but that’s about it.
Honda
5th June 2024, 14:29
Yuki was already on par with Gasly in his second year. He lost 9-12 in qualifying. He will definitely beat him now just like he is doing to Ricciardo. According to my observation he was around 0.3sec ahead of NDV. Around 0.2secs ahead of Lawson 5-0 against him in 2023. Now he is 7-1 against Ricciardo so far this year. Bahrain was team order too. He was ahead all the time and should have got P11 if not for 4lap under cut Zhou and the allowed KMag to undercut him as well and then he got stuck, team orders. It was 4-3 against Ricciardo last year and he scored more points and consistent there as well in spite of missing P8 in Mexico due to clash with Piastri. He turned 24yrs last month and I do not think he is finished product as yet. There is more to come from him
jm
9th June 2024, 14:22
Because Tsunoda 1) has a passport from the wrong country and 2) doesnt have an insane PR machine behind (like Ricciardo has with Creative Artists Agency – you can google that), also not quite the TikToker or teeny DTS personality himself. So it definitely adds up.
This year he’s blooming as an upper midfield driver yes. But with the conditions listed above, you really gotta be Verstappen/Leclerc/Norris tier if you want to be that distinctive top driver. Sad because for me Tsunoda is the driver that should have the seat that Perez has now.
But for now: smiling matters more than driving, and Asia doesn’t sell so well. Not saying I agree with this, but it’s juts the way it goes in this market.
Riker (@corsair)
5th June 2024, 13:29
I can still see him going to the US do NASCAR or something like that. Honestly, he may enjoy it more, and he may even excel.
Riccard
5th June 2024, 13:31
Ricciardo have the comeback a good try, but it hasn’t happened. Best case seems to be catching and matching Tsunoda… but the team already has a Tsunoda.
I’d like to see Lawson back. Develop someone with more room to grow.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
5th June 2024, 13:44
Daniel’s comeback has been a bit disappointing which is a shame. I think in view of the Red Bull decision on Perez, his future does now really lie outside of F1. Hopefully he can put in a few better performances in the remainder of the season.
Edvaldo
5th June 2024, 15:18
Ricciardo did the right thing when he chose to leave Red Bull, the team was already all on Max’s side by then and he wanted the spotlight for himself, not for the guy on the other side of the garage.
His mistake was signing with Renault, a brand that comes and goes out of F1 at random and that don’t inspire confidence in any driver about their long term commitment. When he signed with Mclaren even before the 2020 season began, he was already walking on thin ice. A driver can go from team to team like this, Hulk has been doing it for his whole career, but you can never drop the ball, and he did it massively at Mclaren.
There’s a new generation of drivers at the top and he’s been pushed out, time to let it go.
José Lopes da Silva
5th June 2024, 16:41
Prost did the right thing when he chose to leave McLaren, the team was already all on Senna’s side by then and he wanted the spotlight for himself, not for the guy on the other side of the garage.
Davethechicken
6th June 2024, 8:21
When he left Red Bull it was also when Honda were taking over as engine supplier and with the awful seasons before they had with McLaren, with Button and Alonso trundling around at the back of the field, you can see why it was tempting to leave.
Of course with hindsight Honda were on a dramatically upward trajectory, but nobody knew that at the time, red bulls relationship with Renault had imploded and mercedes refused red bull engines and it looked bleak for red bull
Le Jimster (@lejimster82)
5th June 2024, 15:45
If it wasn’t for Ricciardo’s popularity he’d be out of a seat this season. He really hasn’t been performing and Horner signing Perez so early in the year has pretty much confirmed they’d rather stay with a known quantity than risk bringing Ricciardo back. I think there is very little chance now of Ricciardo ever getting promoted back into the Red Bull team.
Francesco (@schivo69)
5th June 2024, 19:44
I think it’s pretty clear that Horner signed Ricciardo to use him as a marketing tool. There are a number of captivating narratives and reasons that made him an obvious choice:
– story of redemption, CH fuelled this saying that during testing he found his mojo, shame that the timing was not official. The old story of the prodigal son…
– DR guaranteed a massive exposure due to the role of F1 clown that Netflix helped build. Not sure if during next season this exposure will be guaranteed.
– His continuous swearing, like a teenager in the middle of puberty, makes him a magnet for the young audience and matches the Red Bull profile of the skater/street/cool culture.
All these reasons and more are totally unrelated to his racing results and roves that acting like a buffoon can land you a seat in F1 even if you are beaten by Yuki Tsunoda.
Francesco (@schivo69)
5th June 2024, 19:44
*proves
Mr Sam X Crawford
5th June 2024, 15:51
Well he’s been pretty awful since he’s been back so not surprised to be honest
BlackJack (@danieljaksa)
5th June 2024, 16:46
Andretti Global would be silly not to have that experience go to waste. That’s if FOM have the guts to let in another team.
SteveP
6th June 2024, 7:59
To succeed, Andretti would need to improve from their initial entry level – no team ever gets things right day 1.
To improve, their experienced driver would need to be capable of good feedback to the engineers – DR doesn’t seem to have that skill, in fact Andretti would be better taking on the likes of de Vries if the comments from Franz Tost are even slightly accurate.
Longer term, de Vries would probably diminish in usefulness.
Treating some drivers as a consumable/disposable commodity? This is “the piranha club”
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
5th June 2024, 17:22
Looking at this picture, I believe the only logical place for Ricciardo after he retires from F1 is Mario Kart, a racing series much more commercially successful than all of F1 combined.
Where is Luigi? Come on Charles, don’t hide!
SteveP
5th June 2024, 18:45
@Keith
I’m curious, if de Vries had an “indifferent” start, then how would you describe Ricciardo when it is notable that DR hasn’t really caught up to matching the NdV gap to YT ??
It seems like a lesser performance than NdV with more time available to reach the current level.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
5th June 2024, 19:06
His fourth place alone made him about 20 times better than De Vries no matter what he does in every other race.
SteveP
5th June 2024, 19:31
One swallow doesn’t make a summer
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th June 2024, 20:08
That’s very typical with ricciardo though, 2021 was also a horrible season, but his monza win was a top tier performance, and not a lucky win as some people call it, he was ahead of verstappen and hamilton on merit, it didn’t look like they were able to overtake him and the overcut\undercut attempt (can’t remember who pitted first) failed as well, ricciardo came out ahead, before they eventually crashed out.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th June 2024, 20:08
That’s very typical with ricciardo though, 2021 was also a horrible season, but his monza win was a top tier performance, and not a lucky win as some people call it, he was ahead of verstappen and hamilton on merit, it didn’t look like they were able to overtake him and the overcut\undercut attempt (can’t remember who pitted first) failed as well, ricciardo came out ahead, before they eventually crashed out.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th June 2024, 20:08
Meant to be only 1 comment ofc, usually it stops you from duplicating comments, but lately it doesn’t at times.
Mr Squiggle
5th June 2024, 21:42
Dan’s on borrowed time. He’s in a seat that is a development pathway for young up and coming drivers. It wouldn’t surprise me if Liam is brought back in mid-season.
EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
5th June 2024, 23:54
I would (will?) miss Danny and it is a shame that he seems to have lost his way (I personally always felt he did better against Verstappen than most give credit for), but he has been given a fair crack and it doesnt look like he is going to regain his form. Someone else deserves a chance.
jm
9th June 2024, 14:05
DR on his prime could fight Verstappen as a rookie who would make a lot of impulsive mistakes – fast nonetheless but far from his prime.
Once Max started to focus, Ricciardo escaped the fight.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
6th June 2024, 9:53
I have a theory that Dan just hasn’t been able to get his head around the behaviour of ground effects cars.
Other top drivers have and younger, less experienced ones certainly have.
Hopefully over the remainder of the season he’ll throw caution to the wind now the pressure to perform is off and show us some stellar performances before deciding to retire.
It’s really quite sad to see a driver that was once touted as a potential WDC in such a state and I’d love to see some of the old spark before he leaves.