Time runs out on Daniel Ricciardo’s fairytale Red Bull F1 finale

Sometimes, stories don’t have happy endings.

When an image surfaced of a smiling Daniel Ricciardo in Red Bull gear alongside Christian Horner in November 2022, it seemed like it was only ever going to end one way.

Sergio Perez would have been looking nervously over his shoulder as Ricciardo, the last driver to challenge Max Verstappen as a team-mate, was back in the building. A move to AlphaTauri was seen as the perfect warm-up before a triumphant return to the team he left in 2019.

But Formula 1, like life, does not always work out as planned.

Ricciardo is out as Visa CashApp RB return to their roots with a young academy driver in the seat.

Ricciardo himself knows only too well how cut-throat that particular academy can be. The fresh-faced Australian was part of an all-new line up at Toro Rosso in 2012 as Red Bull shuffled the deck and while he never reached the heights of Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel, Ricciardo remains one of the most successful products of the Red Bull academy.

That success seems a distant memory now. Aside from the Monza miracle with McLaren – in which the 2021 title contenders crashed into each other – Ricciardo has not been on the top step since 2018. His stint at Renault is often, wrongly, billed as a failure but it was at McLaren where his confidence was sapped and it seems it never really came back.

Ricciardo’s driving style was billed as the last of the late-brakers, a driver who puts more trust in instinct than most so when that trust abandoned him, his performances took a nosedive.

Only Ricciardo will know if the MCL35M and the subsequent MCL36 was truly the problem but it seemed to be the first domino to fall in a chain that ends here, Ricciardo out of the sport and his bright star extinguished.

If there are question marks about his decision to join Renault, Ricciardo’s move to McLaren made sense on paper. His performances at Renault had been good, enough to win him a bet with team principal Cyril Abiteboul, but any momentum he had came to a grounding halt. A positive start in which he scored points in six of the first seven races began to unravel. Come the end of the season, Ricciardo had scored points in just one of the final five grands prix.

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At the same time, Lando Norris’s star was rising and the long-time McLaren driver was going from prodigy to a genuine talent. Ricciardo finished 45 points behind Norris and only crossed the line ahead of him on seven of a possible 22 occasions.

In the second year, things only got worse. Ricciardo spoke of going back to basics, of taking one step back to go two steps forward, of trying to find his groove again but ultimately it never came. Ricciardo’s McLaren misery ended a year early as the Woking outfit moved to secure Oscar Piastri.

For the first time, Ricciardo was facing the question of where next? Since his rise at Red Bull, he has been one of the sport’s hottest prospects, and the most marketable, but now there was no long list of teams wanting to sign him. A desire to not move down the grid meant he snubbed Haas’ offer and when Alpine made it clear they were not interested in a reunion, at least a year out looked inevitable.

Ricciardo was handed a lifeline as Horner, one of the Australian’s closest allies in his F1 career, created the new role of third driver. A blend of reserve duties and promotional activities to give Ricciardo the detox he needed but enough contact to keep him fresh should the opportunity to return arise.

That opportunity did arise. Nyck de Vries proved he could not cut it and after Silverstone, the Red Bull axe swung. The path back to Ricciardo’s stated end goal had become clear – do well at AlphaTauri and that Red Bull seat is yours – but, as has summed up Ricciardo’s late career, nothing has been easy.

An unfortunate hand injury, caused by trying to avoid his McLaren successor Piastri at Zandvoort, sidelined him but not only that, it gave Red Bull a chance to see what Liam Lawson could do. The New Zealander impressed so when Ricciardo returned for the United States Grand Prix, there was plenty of speculation as to who would get the seat in 2024.

Red Bull, with a rebrand of their junior team on the horizon, kept with Ricciardo but this season has again seen him handily beaten by Yuki Tsunoda, a driver deemed not good enough for the step up. Frustrating form has resulted in Ricciardo often fighting in the second half of the field. The Australian has made it to Q3 three times this year and often just barely.

Ricciardo, as much as he and others may have hoped, is not the future of Red Bull and the decision made today has confirmed he is not the future of VCARB either. Lawson, who has been linked with a move to Audi should Red Bull fail to offer him a seat, always seemed likely to be a matter of when not if. Ricciardo would have hoped he would have secured the Red Bull seat by the time that decision came.

And so he departs, possibly never to be seen again and his post-race interviews in Singapore had a decidedly ‘end of the road’ feel.

Ricciardo was undoubtedly a brilliant driver, one who made moves stick where others would not even dare, and he seemed an obvious contender for future world titles, but the question that will always surround Ricciardo is what if?

What if he stayed at Red Bull? What if he tried to fight for his spot alongside Max Verstappen? What if he was in the car in 2021 when it became a world-beater? What about 2022? What about 2023?

Those questions will go unanswered and Ricciardo has always insisted he has no regrets over the move that came to define his career but you can’t help feel that if he had stayed, his career would not have ended like this.

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