Daniel Ricciardo: The best pundit Sky F1 never had?

Former McLaren and Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo has revealed that “jumping into commentating or something is not what I want to do” following his F1 exit in 2024.

Ricciardo announced his retirement from motorsport last September, almost a year after his final F1 appearance for Racing Bulls at the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix.

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The popular Australian also took up a global ambassador role with Ford, the new engine partner of his former team Red Bull, with which Ricciardo claimed all but one of his eight career victories between 2014 and 2018.

Ricciardo has been persistently linked with a move into punditry since his retirement, with fans regularly expressing a wish for the 36-year-old to join Sky F1’s all-star lineup of 2009 world champion Jenson Button, 2016 title winner Nico Rosberg, 1997 champion Jacques Villeneuve and commentary legend Martin Brundle.

In a recent interview The Athletic, Ricciardo commented that a television career does not appeal to him following the end of his F1 stint.

Sky did not respond to PlanetF1.com’s query over whether the broadcaster has approached Ricciardo over a punditry role since his last F1 appearance in 2024.

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Revealing that some within his inner circle had urged him to quickly jump into something new following his F1 exit, Ricciardo said: “I just had to try and push back on that stuff, because I didn’t feel like that was right or what I wanted.

“And I know jumping into commentating or something is not what I want to do.

“So just doing something to do it and stay in people spaces is just personally not my journey, not what I’m chasing.”

Ricciardo has taken part in a number of exhibition events after joining Ford, as well as attending the manufacturer’s 2026 season-launch event in Detroit in January.

The season launch saw him reunited with Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls as both team unveiled their new liveries for the F1 2026 season.

Ricciardo, who last year teased a potential comeback appearance at the Baja 1000 after participating in the Ford Raptor rally, says his role with the US manufacturer allows him to remain in touch with the motorsport space, allowing him to “enjoy” being behind the wheel again.

He said: “It still keeps me linked to the automotive world, but I’m not just a poster boy for F1. I can kind of do my own thing but stay in that space.”

“[It’s helped me] get to a place where I enjoy getting behind a wheel again and that doesn’t have to be racing, it doesn’t have to be on a stage and with a stopwatch.

“It’s given me some of that.”

Ricciardo is known to have a close relationship with Natalie Pinkham, the long-serving Sky F1 presenter who is set to return at this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix following surgery on her neck last September.

The pair were spotted together in the crowd at the Premier League football match between Brentford and Newcastle United last November.

The game fell on the same day as F1’s Brazilian Grand Prix, with Pinkham forced to abandon plans to return at the Sao Paulo race following the procedure on her neck.

In a recent interview with PlanetF1.com, Pinkham said of her relationship with Ricciardo: “He’s a close friend, godfather to our son Wilf, very much one of the family. He comes to stay.

“He always says he doesn’t like football so we were like: ‘We’ll see about that.’

“[Igor] Thiago scored two late goals [for Brentford], the second in stoppage time, we won, the Gtech [Brentford stadium] went off and Daniel absolutely loved it.”

Put to him that life in the paddock is not the same without Ricciardo, she replied: “I know. And do you know what? There was just never a dull moment with him.

“We’re lucky we stay in touch and we still see him and take him to Brentford games! But [F1] does feel very different.”

Additional reporting by Alex Spink

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