The verdict might have been foggy at the Singapore Grand Prix last week, but now it’s official: Daniel Ricciardo (Visa CashApp RB) has been retired from Formula 1 and replaced by Liam Lawson. Some may say that this was inevitable, but it’s still hard to believe that he is leaving after thirteen years in the sport.
While Ricciardo never won a World Driver’s Championship, he won 8 races in his career and had 32 podium finishes. He also won the Monaco Grand Prix in 2018, which is a famously difficult race to win. This was an especially welcome victory after not achieving his best result the year before. Though there are other drivers on the grid such as Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) and Max Verstappen (Red Bull) who have championship wins under their belts, Ricciardo still solidified himself as a key player in Formula 1.
Ricciardo was on many different teams in his career. After starting at HRT, he moved onto Red Bull and their junior team Toro Rosso. Afterwards, he went onto Renault in a move that shocked everyone. This move is widely considered to have started the downward turn of Ricciardo’s career. That, at least, is how it seemed when I was watching the season one episode dedicated to his decision on the Netflix show, Drive To Survive.
In the only other season I have watched (season six) the narrative of the episodes portrayed Ricciardo’s rocky last couple of years in Formula 1. From what I gathered, Ricciardo, after failing to perform as well as his teammate Lando Norris at McLaren, the team he joined after Renault, returned to Red Bull as more of their marketing/reserve driver. Later in the season, he got the opportunity to rejoin Red Bull’s junior team, now called AlphaTauri, to replace Nyck DeVries mid-season.
Unfortunately for Ricciardo, the same swap would occur for him during the very next season. The team he is being swapped from is now called Visa Cashapp RB rather than AlphaTauri, but the situations truly are parallel.
Though he wasn’t given the send off that many fans of Ricciardo and the sport itself believe he deserved, he still achieved great things in Formula 1. Ricciardo’s former teammates and grid-mates all congratulated him on his career and accomplishments over social media. I hope Daniel Ricciardo knows just how much all of us fans appreciate him, no matter what team he was on.
The “High-Octane Herald” is written by Ava O’Donnell and details the latest Formula One news regarding races and current events.