Solely Webber (42 podiums) has extra visits to the podium than Ricciardo (32) amongst Australian drivers, whereas statistically, Ricciardo’s greatest season got here in 2016, when he scored 256 world championship factors, took one win and 7 different podium finishes, and recorded the quickest race lap 4 instances.
The attention take a look at
The numbers solely inform a part of the Ricciardo story, and do little to clarify the affect he’s made within the sport throughout his 12 seasons. Ricciardo’s early profession was a sluggish burn, and whereas flashes of promise indicated he was fast sufficient – he certified a surprising sixth in Bahrain for Scuderia Toro Rosso in simply his fourth race of his first full-time season in 2012 – that very same race confirmed how inexperienced he was, getting bullied again to sixteenth after the primary lap of the grand prix the next day.
As soon as he received what was successfully a shootout with French teammate Jean-Eric Vergne for a seat at Purple Bull Racing to switch the retiring Webber for 2014, Ricciardo’s confidence – and signature really feel together with his left foot on the brakes – soared. In a automotive that was a way off being the perfect on the grid, Ricciardo scored his first three wins in swashbuckling fashion, making two overtakes within the ultimate 5 laps to win his maiden grand prix in Canada, after which passing Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton on the demise to take victory in Hungary, decisive late-braking manoeuvres catching out each world champions in consecutive laps.
None of Ricciardo’s eight wins had been simple or in the perfect equipment on the grid, his penchant for the dramatic solely including to his reputation, and solely matched by a way of mischief and quotable quips.
“Generally you’ve simply received to lick the stamp and ship it,” Ricciardo grinned after storming from sixth to first inside 15 laps of the 2018 Chinese language Grand Prix, his sixth F1 victory.
Toasting his wins and podium successes with a “shoey” – a sweaty racing boot crammed to the brim with champagne – turned his signature celebration and made him a social media megastar.
The height
Ricciardo’s greatest 12 months – given the place it got here from and who it was up towards – was undoubtedly 2014, when he took on reigning four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel in equal equipment at Purple Bull and dominated, taking three wins to Vettel’s none, and outscoring the German 238-167 over the season earlier than Vettel decamped to Ferrari. It was a season that compelled a rethink on Ricciardo’s – and by affiliation, Vettel’s – standing within the sport.
“I knew it was a means for me to essentially benchmark myself, actually, towards the perfect man on this planet at the moment,” Ricciardo says of 2014.
“Beating him was large. If he’d kicked my arse, it will have been ‘oh nicely, I’ve gone up towards the perfect and clearly I don’t have what it takes’. Due to what I did, it made folks positively begin to respect me, and that was large for my profession transferring ahead.”
Vettel, talking on the Past the Grid podcast this week forward of the ultimate race of his profession in Abu Dhabi earlier than his retirement, gave Ricciardo his due.
“Daniel clearly had a mega 12 months in 2014,” Vettel stated.
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“The reality is he out-performed me, in a number of the races by fairly a giant margin, and I ran out of options.”
Ricciardo’s most constant two-year run got here at Purple Bull in 2016-17, when he received two races and completed on the rostrum 17 instances up towards now two-time world champion Max Verstappen, beating the Dutchman in each campaigns.
The decline
Ricciardo’s resolution to go away Purple Bull for Renault on the finish of 2018 was predominantly to “depart dwelling”, as he put it, after his whole junior profession in Europe from the age of 17 had been backed by the power drinks firm.
It was additionally partly, and predictably, as a result of Verstappen was the staff’s new golden boy, initially signed to a longer-term contract than Ricciardo based mostly on potential reasonably than manufacturing. Ricciardo and Verstappen being blamed equally by the staff after they crashed within the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix – after Verstappen moved twice in entrance of Ricciardo within the braking zone for the primary nook – solely confirmed what Ricciardo, deep down, knew.
Historical past exhibits that decision ended Ricciardo’s time as a real risk for race wins and prime outcomes – he’s managed simply three podiums within the 4 years since departing Purple Bull – however arguably his greatest mistake was leaving Renault for McLaren on the finish of 2020, not transferring to Renault within the first place.
With the 2020 season begin in Melbourne referred to as off on the eleventh hour due to COVID-19, Ricciardo decamped to his farm in rural Western Australia and determined to just accept a 2021-23 supply from McLaren earlier than he’d even raced Renault’s 2020 machine.
The 2020 season, as soon as it will definitely started, was one among Ricciardo’s best and most underrated campaigns, ending fifth on this planet championship and snaring two podiums in a automotive teammate Esteban Ocon may solely take to twelfth within the standings.
It was additionally a case of questioning what might need been had he stayed.
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The excessive level – singular – in two seasons at McLaren couldn’t have been increased, taking the staff’s first win since 2012 when he led teammate Lando Norris in a 1-2 end on the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, however Ricciardo was nicely off Norris’ tempo for a lot of that season, and even additional adrift this 12 months as a brand new period of automobiles with wider tyres and extra dependence on underfloor aerodynamics had been alien to Ricciardo’s driving fashion, and visibly shredded him of confidence.
Sitting twelfth within the drivers’ standings heading into Abu Dhabi, Ricciardo is on observe for his worst championship end since 2013, justifying McLaren’s resolution in August to terminate his take care of the staff for 2023.
The longer term
Because the end line to the 2022 season has come into sharper focus in latest races, Ricciardo has been bombarded with questions as to what comes subsequent.
Whether or not he accepts the mooted Purple Bull reserve drive or not, David Coulthard, Purple Bull Racing’s first driver for its inaugural season in 2005 and a winner of 13 grands prix, feels Ricciardo wants to return to fundamentals to find if the hearth nonetheless burns – and if his halcyon days could be greater than a reminiscence rising smaller within the rearview mirror.
“I believe he must step away, take inventory and rediscover no matter it was that was working for him within the first a part of his System One journey,” Coulthard advised the In The Quick Lane podcast this week.
“He’s younger sufficient and match sufficient to have the ability to get again to that place.”
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