What the hell happened to Daniel Ricciardo? Why is one of the most famous drivers of the past decade fighting for his future in F1 once again?
Ricciardo's decline since his peak at Red Bull through spells at Renault and McLaren has been one of the most interesting stories of the decade so far. Let's explore some theories to find out why everything went wrong…
Discussion: Possible reasons behind Daniel Ricciardo's F1 decline
He received the cash after leaving Red Bull
In mid-2018, Ricciardo was the Jenson to Max's Lewis.
True, Verstappen was quickly emerging as the more naturally talented of the two, and Red Bull was becoming Team Verstappen, but Daniel, with his charm and winning smile, There was still plenty of room for him to play an active role.
Then, on the first Friday of the summer break, Ricciardo commits career suicide by announcing he is leaving the team that adored him, one of the few cars that can win races, and signs a lucrative contract to drive a Renault. I was disappointed. He was doing laps regularly.
The decision instantly shattered the perception of Ricciardo as an ambitious, career-oriented man who often spoke of his race against time to become world champion and confirmed that his priorities had changed. .
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And so, after making his bed, and even if he didn't admit it, he almost certainly regretted his decision by the time he left the Red Bull factory for the last time – he decided to lie down in that bed.
Not long after he left Red Bull, there was a change in management as building the brand took priority over his career prospects.
And sure enough, along came clothing and alcohol lineups, video game cameos, and a social media presence that looked more like an Instagram fad than a racing driver.
He did well for a few years at Renault, but had a bad awakening at McLaren, alongside another phenomenal Max-like talent in Lando Norris, and all of his post-Red Bull excesses turned into a disaster. It caught up with him relentlessly for two years.
Has he ever recovered from that decision he famously made on a plane to Los Angeles in August 2018?
Monetary-motivated moves like this can irreparably damage a competitor's psyche. And once that hunger, that all-encompassing focus, is gone, it never comes back.
So leaving Red Bull may have made Ricciardo rich beyond his wildest dreams, but he has been paying the price ever since.
He can't drive a mediocre/bad F1 car
What has been Ricciardo's most impressive performance since he started getting serious about returning to F1 last year?
It wasn't during AlphaTauri/RB's qualifying laps or race stint, but during the Pirelli tire test he took part in at Silverstone behind the wheel of Red Bull's flagship RB19 machine.
Rumors of the day, since confirmed by Christian Horner in the latest series of Drive to Survive, were that Ricciardo's fastest lap would have put him on the front row of the British Grand Prix two days later (Verstappen's pole position (within 0.241 seconds of the winning time).
It's dangerous to look too deeply into headline times when key details such as fuel load are unknown, as well as the fact that Verstappen's pole was set on a dry green track in a rain-affected session. .
But his ability to run such competitive laps would suggest that's not the only problem. completely With Ricardo.
Does the old Daniel, the Daniel from his peak at Red Bull from 2014 to 2018, still exist somewhere, just without the machinery to fully express himself?
Is he someone who simply uses difficult or resistant cars to get back to the mean, but would still fly if given a really competitive car with tons of downforce?
If you look at his early years, there was always a tendency for his own performance level to go through the roof with fast cars.
Despite some eye-catching performances (a memorable 6th place on the grid in Bahrain in 2012), Ricciardo did not see himself as the standout option when Mark Webber retired in 2013. He didn't assert himself enough against Jean-Eric Vergne at Toro Rosso to do so. During that summer, Bull courted Kimi Raikkonen in public.
Still, he was Promoted to the senior team and finally given a compliant front running machine in 2014, Ricciardo grew almost overnight to levels unanticipated by most (including Red Bull, and perhaps even Daniel himself) and finally Vettel, the current four-time world champion who was to drive Sebastian, left town.
True, some drivers are simply better equipped to drive fast cars.
But is there a great irony here? Ricciardo won't be given a fast car again unless he can prove he can be fast and reliable in a slower car.
McLaren stint ruined his mojo
There is a compelling idea that Ricciardo's disastrous two-year stint at McLaren was more about a culture clash than a car issue.
It has been said that McLaren works in mysterious ways, flooding the driver's head with overwhelming information for a go-with-the-flow personality like Ricciardo (who is by no means a technically oriented driver). It's here.
For example, do you remember how his race engineer would sometimes coach him on laps over the team radio? “Daniel, FYI: Lando is braking 10 meters before Turn 2, etc.'' ”
This is why one of Ricciardo's better performances with McLaren came in his first race with the team at the 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix, and why it was one of the rare occasions he started ahead of Norris. , and may explain why he was never the same after becoming part of the team. The tentacles began to seize.
The deeper Ricciardo dug into the data, rather than finding a solution, the more confused, confused and lost he became, leaving him a shell of his former self by 2022, forcing McLaren to give up. he.
Since Red Bull and Ricciardo reunited in 2023, Horner has mentioned that McLaren has been tinkering with his mojo, and Horner said when he tried out the simulator for the first time after his return, he didn't think the team would “recognize” Daniel or his driving style. “I didn't,” he openly admitted.
When he returned to racing last year, it was clear that unlearning his so-called “bad habits” was still an ongoing progress, but a broken bone just two races ago slowed him down.
Back in Hungary, Ricciardo and Red Bull have shown that they have a good understanding of what went wrong at McLaren, and have simplified everything and rediscovered their passion for F1, reducing it to just the act of driving a car. He talked about concentrating.
Although it seems very simple in principle, it is not so easy in practice.
When faced with adversity or extreme pressure, bad habits tend to resurface, and breaking them can be much more difficult than you originally thought.
fear gripped him
Jules Bianchi's ultimately fatal accident at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix was the first glimpse of the darker side of F1 for many of today's drivers, but in terms of leaving a lasting mark. It was relatively easy to justify.
The accident was a shock, of course, but the circumstances were so unusual and tragically strange that they were able to keep it in the back of their minds.
Romain Grosjean's fireball at Bahrain 2020? It's the kind of thing that pops into your mind, where a sport is so close to catastrophe after a relatively innocuous first-lap touch like this.
It really could have happened to any of them.
Ricciardo has always been one of the most safety-conscious drivers on the grid since F1 cars first started showing halos during pre-season testing in 2016.
While others tear up at the sight of this scaffolding around the cockpit, especially Nico Hulkenberg, Ricciardo is adamant that it is the right direction, almost guiltily leading his rivals to his It dragged me into thinking.
“There's no need to be a hero about this situation,” he said, adding that the halo looks scary and sends the wrong message as F1 intends to keep its dangerous elements in order to be “sexy and glamorous”. I mentioned Hulkenberg's complaint.
“It doesn't change the speed of sports or cars. It just gives us extra protection in case there's a flying object. I don't understand why he would be so excited about something like that. What does it mean? there is not.”
Ricciardo was by far the most emotional of all the drivers after Grosjean's crash in Bahrain, with repeated replays played during the red flag delay and how F1 was “playing with every emotion”. he accused.
Is it just a coincidence that his decline began shortly thereafter?
If it's true that Ricardo's priorities had already changed by this point, then the activation of his self-preservation instincts would have only slowed him down a little bit more.
Ricciardo's friend Jenson Button explained in his autobiography that he had never experienced fear at the wheel of his F1 career until he announced his retirement at the end of 2016.
And once the thought entered my head that something might go wrong, I couldn't wait to get out of there.
That's something he'll never admit now – because what good is it? – But when his career is over and there’s really no way back, it will be interesting to know whether Grosjean’s crash had a bigger impact on him than anyone could have imagined at the time.
This goes a long way toward explaining the Ricardo we're seeing now. He makes all the right noises and says all the right things in public, but deep down he is someone who is probably not there anymore.
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