Daniel Ricciardo faces DOUBLE F1 battle to save his career

Daniel Ricciardo

Ricciardo faces DOUBLE battle to save his F1 career

Could this season be Daniel Ricciardo's last?

Daniel Austin

Friday 16 August 2024 12:56

While all 20 Formula 1 drivers are no doubt targeting as strong as possible a finish to the 2024 season once they return to the track following the summer break, Daniel Ricciardo has arguably more at stake than any of his contemporaries.

Of course, it is Max Verstappen who faces the pressure of seeing out a fourth consecutive title-winning campaign in a car which is no longer the fastest in the field, and there are plenty of other drivers on the grid whose futures have not been by tied down by either contract renewals with their current teams or transfers to new seats.

For the Australian, though, the final ten races of the year will dictate not only where he ends up in the championship standings, but whether he will have any F1 career left at all.

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That is because Ricciardo appears to essentially only have one shot at remaining in the top tier of motorsport beyond the season finale in Abu Dhabi – doing enough to convince Red Bull that he should step up to the senior team and become Verstappen’s team-mate once again for 2025.

Simply put, there is zero use in Ricciardo remaining with the junior RB team beyond the end of 2024. In fact, his 12 months with the squad since replacing Nyck de Vries have arguably been a waste of time for both parties thus far.

For Ricciardo, he has been comprehensively outperformed by far less experienced team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, and was unable to stake a strong enough claim to replace Sergio Perez in time for the start of 2024. That means that, at 35, he is merely trundling around the lower midfield scoring occasional points, having been a proven race winner much earlier in his career.

And from the team’s perspective, persevering with Ricciardo entirely negates their function as a junior operation within which Red Bull can develop the next generation of elite racers from their young driver programme.

With youngster Liam Lawson due a promotion to an RB seat after his impressive stand-in performances when Ricciardo was injured for five races lasts season, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko pointedly reaffirmed the team’s focus on youth earlier this summer when he told ESPN: “It was a clear statement from the shareholders that RB is a junior team and this route will be how the future will look.”

Does Ricciardo only have one option left in F1?

A return to Red Bull could be Ricciardo's only hope

That means two key things: Ricciardo’s career is completely stalled as things stand, and his presence at RB is blocking a talented younger driver from the brand stable from making the step up.

There is still one seat each at both Sauber and Alpine available for 2025, but given the lack of links between Ricciardo and the former and his acrimonious departure from the latter when it was known as Renault at the end of 2020, it really does seem that only a step up can save him from a permanent F1 exit.

Were that to happen, the woes Ricciardo has steadily endured since originally leaving Red Bull in 2018 would be put behind him – after all, he would be back driving for one of the most competitive teams on the grid with a chance at winning races once again. But right now the likelihood appears slim.

What does Ricciardo have do to save his F1 career?

As well as drastically improving his standalone form, Ricciardo must win a double battle to demonstrate he is worthy of the second Red Bull seat alongside Verstappen: comprehensively outperform Tsunoda in the same machinery, and get close enough to Perez’s results in the quicker car that he looks the significantly more confident and consistent driver.

Those simultaneous fights will be difficult to win. Firstly, Tsunoda has quite simply been quicker than Ricciardo throughout the majority of race weekends so far, and has been able to capitalise particularly strong weekends by scoring low points finishes on far more occasions.

Furthermore, Perez may be enduring one of the most wretched seasons of any driver racing for a top team in the 21st century so far, but ultimately he does still control his own destiny because he remains in the quicker and some regular finishes around the top five would put him out of Ricciardo’s reach.

The task that one of F1’s most popular and marketable drivers faces is a stern one, then, and the consequences could hardly be more contrasting.

Succeed in his dual duelling and Ricciardo could be back in a car running at the front of the grid. Fail and his time in Formula 1 could well be over forever.

Red Bull Max Verstappen Lewis Hamilton Ferrari Daniel Ricciardo