For many Formula 1 fans, Daniel Ricciardo was the face of their journey into the sport. The first season of the Netflix docuseries Drive to survive focused on the driver’s surprising decision to leave Red Bull for Renault, and the charismatic driver helped attract many new fans to F1.
So his return to the Red Bull family at the end of his career offered the chance for a Hollywood ending. But that did not live up to hopes and expectations, when he was sidelined by Visa Cash App Racing Bulls at the end of the 2024 campaign.
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However, the driver admits that he was “grateful” that the team made that decision for him.
In a new episode of Drive In a podcast with Ford CEO Jim Farley, Ricciardo admitted he was contemplating his future in the sport when VCARB decided to replace him after the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix with Liam Lawson.
“In the third race I broke my hand,” he said in the podcast published by Ford. “It was a minor accident, but I missed a lot of races, I was out for 10 weeks or something like that.”
Ricciardo suffered the injury after making a shocking return to VCARB midway through the 2023 season.
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The driver told Farley he was wondering, “Is this now some kind of sign that I should quit while I’m ahead, almost? And I said, no, there’s still unfinished business and I just kept going.”
Ricciardo returned to finish the 2023 season and also started the 2024 campaign. But the results did not follow.
“I lasted one more year in F1 and finally they fired me,” he said. “That was the reality at the time.”
In the end, VCARB abandoned him after the Singapore Grand Prix.
“Once that happened, I got fired twice in the last two years. It took a lot for me too. I put a lot of my soul into it and I felt pretty exhausted.
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“In reflection, I was grateful that they made the decision for me, because I think it would have been difficult (to say), ‘I’m done.’”
Riccardo also indicated that deep down he knew it was the end.
“There are people who love you and will still tell you that you’re great and that you can do it. But as much as you love them too, you have to close the door and make that decision on your own and be really honest with yourself,” Ricciardo said.
“If I had gotten to the end of last year, I think I would still have had a lot of these thoughts and I would have had the conversation with myself because I knew it was getting harder for me and I had to dig really deep to achieve a result I was proud of.
“You always want to believe that everyone is looking out for you, and they probably still are, but they don’t know what it’s like to be you and be in your situation.”