Farewell to Daniel Ricciardo – the Red Bull Formula 1 champion that never was

After eight wins and 32 podiums in Formula 1 before he lost his place on the grid last September, Daniel Ricciardo has announced his retirement from all of motor racing

Cheerio to Daniel Ricciardo who yesterday announced his retirement from racing. He has spent the last year since he was axed from the Formula 1 grid out of the spotlight, spending time with family and growing himself a quite impressive beard.

In the few public appearances he has made, the 36-year-old suggested, without ever properly saying it, that he was not interested in another comeback. He has now confirmed as much, calling time not only on his F1 career but also on motor racing in general.

Ricciardo’s career is very much a story of what could have been. He managed eight race victories and 32 visits to the podium, which are impressive numbers which dozens of very talented drivers past and present would love to have managed themselves.

But could he have been World champion if he had just stuck with Red Bull a little longer? We will never know. He left for Renault in 2018 because of the emergence of Max Verstappen and we all know how the Dutchman’s team-mates have fared since.

It was tough to watch one of the most likeable people in all of World sport endure those difficult two seasons with McLaren, before he was axed from the grid. And even when he came back with Red Bull’s sister team, he looked a shadow of his former self and never did enough to win back the seat he had vacated several years before.

He is missed both as a racer but also, and mostly, as one of F1’s great characters. People gravitate towards someone like Ricciardo and that was why he became a global superstar when F1 allowed the Netflix cameras in. Drive to Survive was always more focused on the people rather than the racing itself.

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That helped Ricciardo to win millions of fans across the globe, but particularly in the USA, and that is why Ford Racing have snapped him up as their new brand ambassador. And who knows? Ford are working with Red Bull from next year on their engine project, so maybe we will still see Ricciardo in an F1 paddock every now and then.

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Fans of dull processions, rejoice! The Monaco Grand Prix is here to stay. It was announced on Friday that F1 will continue to visit the Principality every year until at least 2035.

That means 10 more brilliant Saturdays featuring probably the best qualifying session of the year. And 10 more really nice afternoon naps while everyone trundles round for 78 laps and finishes exactly where they started.

From the archive

It is not just Ferrari – both Italy-based F1 teams tend to do well at Monza, where Sebastian Vettel won for Toro Rosso as a rookie back in 2008 and, 12 years later, Pierre Gasly repeated the trick.

Fast fact

Ricciardo’s last F1 win came at Monza in 2021, one of the few highlights of his McLaren spell, finishing ahead of his team-mate who was some young Brit named Lando Norris. Whatever happened to him?

Inside track

IndyCar race-winner Colton Herta will risk it all in his desperation to make it to F1, having decided to quit the American series for a space on the Formula 2 grid next year alongside teenagers in a bid to get his FIA superlicence and prove IndyCar drivers can cut it in F1 too.