Exactly one year ago this Monday, Daniel Ricciardo had all of Formula 1 enraptured.
Against all odds, against the run of form, against what his car should have been capable of, he’d just won the Italian Grand Prix.
It was a glorious weekend for Ricciardo, who for a fleeting three days was at his old-school best. He was quick in qualifying to line up fourth, decisive in the sprint to finish third and was promoted by a penalty ahead of him to start the Grand Prix from second on the grid.
He didn’t need to be told what to do from there.
He sliced into the lead ahead of Max Verstappen before putting on a defensive driving masterclass to keep the Dutchman in his much faster Red Bull Racing car behind him. McLaren aced the pit stop to ensure the Australian would keep the lead, but Verstappen then crashed himself out of the race in a battle with Lewis Hamilton anyway.
Only Lando Norris, now up to second, stood as a possible threat, and the Briton intimated over team radio that he was faster and should be let through, requests to which the team rightly gave short shrift.
And as though he’d overheard those exchanges — or perhaps had predicted that some would attempt to write off his win as being gifted to him by team orders — Ricciardo set the fastest lap of the race on the final tour with his used tyres.
His supremacy that Sunday was undisputed.
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But here we are 12 months later and that marvellous day in Monza is still the only highlight of Ricciardo’s soon-to-end McLaren career. Indeed the goodwill from that victory — still McLaren’s last — wasn’t enough to stop the team from sacking him less than 12 months later when his 2022 form nosedived.
Rather than returning to scene of his drought-breaking victory triumphant, the mood is notably more subdued as Formula 1 descends again on Monza.
“I’m sure there’ll be some weird feelings going back,” Ricciardo said. “Certainly maybe some happy-sad feelings, because it was such a big moment last year, but I think we’re in a different position this year.
“I’d love to say we’ll be fighting for a podium, but I think we know the truth at the moment, where we are.”
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‘I’M NOT SUPERHUMAN’
You can see it on Ricciardo’s face in the paddock. His trademark grin — the habit of a lifetime — is never far from sight, but it’s not enough to mask the effects of this momentous juncture in his career. Once one of Formula 1’s biggest characters, his presence today is diminished, as if compressed by the weight of the circumstances that have overtaken him.
“If I said I’d loved every second, I don’t think you would publish that. I think you’d know it’s a lie,” he said, describing the last fortnight in the F1 fishbowl since announcing he and McLaren were terminating their contract a year early.
“Definitely [the announcement], at least the Thursday, was less enjoyable. I knew I would have to go through the motions of what people were going to ask me. Obviously I was prepared to answer everything and I knew what was going to come, so it wasn’t like a shock, but still kind of talking about it when you kind of just want to get back to racing.”
But there’s little respite for Ricciardo when the visor goes down. His McLaren is struggling badly for consistency, and chaser to his contract shot in Spa was the team’s fourth non-scoring race of the year, dropping it further away from the top four in the title standings.
And when the car is performing, the same demons that have haunted the Australian for much of McLaren tenure return.
At the Dutch Grand Prix he was knocked out in Q1 to Norris’s top-10 performance, and while the mitigating circumstances of a dirty track were partly to blame, there was no question he wasn’t on his teammate’s level on Saturday.
What followed on Sunday was unfortunately more of the same. With overtaking tricky around the narrow Zandvoort track, he trailed home second-last among the finishers ahead of only the lapped Nicholas Latifi.
“It’s tricky at the moment. I think it’s not helped by the on-track stuff [being] tough,” he said.
“But even me, I put the helmet on, I shut it out and I feel I’m very good at that, but maybe I’m not superhuman.
“And I don’t want to be naive; I’m sure there is still some of that hanging about. So I don’t think there is in a way where it’s like I feel like I’m still driving and attacking.
“But yeah, maybe I’m naive to say it’s not there.”
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THE PROBLEM WITH EMOTIONAL DECISIONS
What Ricciardo will do next has been the subject of intense speculation over the last week, with the heat doubling when it became clear Alpine, the most competitive team with a seat still available, has put Pierre Gasly at the top of its list. Alpine upper management is said to be uncomfortable with the idea of hiring the driver than abandoned the team after two years. In effect it’s returned serve.
Lower-grid options have been floated, with a move to Haas on paper an interesting prospect, but the Australian’s open consideration of a sabbatical has been attention grabbing.
If he does decide to sit out 2023 — at the substantial risk that the doors to F1 will close behind him — it’ll be as much about the logistics of finding a seat as it will be about the exhaustion of what will have been two energy-sapping years.
“Everything’s still kind of too fresh,” he said. “I guess what you’ve got to be careful of — and this is just in general — especially with a decision like this, is nothing can be emotional.
“I’ve never been in this situation before from a contractual point of view, where it’s obviously been cut short. You kind of have to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.”
The psychology of a hardened competitive animal is fascinating to contemplate at a moment like this, particularly with the confluence of factors behind Ricciardo’s predicament.
He’s simultaneously highly rated but treated with serious scepticism in the paddock. He’s also theoretically far from retirement but also past 30 years old on an increasingly young grid. He has plenty still to offer but apparently few willing to take it.
Former F1 driver Alex Yoong, who raced alongside Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber at the Australian-run Minardi team, told the Race Wrap podcast that it was common for drivers at this delicate phase of their careers to be sucked into bad decision-making.
“When drivers do start to get a little bit older, you do start to see some tail-offs in these kinds of decision,” he said.
“Trust me, as far as he’s concerned, he’s 110 per cent. He won’t see any difference.
“But as I get to an age in my career, I look back and think, ‘You know what, maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I was thinking about other stuff’.
“I’ve talked to (Jenson) Button about this, I’ve talked to (David) Coulthard about this. They said their last couple of choices, they look back at them now [and] they weren’t really there. They thought they were, but they weren’t.
“I suspect that’s what’s happened to Ricciardo.”
STILL OKAY
But for now the only thing that matters is the last seven races of the year — as it stands, the final seven grands prix of his career, with no contract lined up for next year and the live prospect of choosing to leave it that way.
And no matter how trying the last weeks, months and years have been, Ricciardo says he’s still committed to getting the best from himself through to the end of the season.
“I do want to be at the next seven races,” Ricciardo said. “I do want to show up and I do want to get to Monza with the energy that I know I can show and the result that I know I can get.
“It has been at times uncomfortable, the last couple of weekends, but I’m not ready to just go and hide and close the door yet.
“I think by the end of the season, for sure, I will just want to switch off and spend some time home. But I’m not ready for it yet.
“And I also don’t want to go out on a 17th place or something like that. I’m going to keep fighting through it.
“Fortunately I love combat sports and I’m used to watching and supporting fighters who get knocked down and get back up, so I’m trying to put myself in that position now and be from the outside someone telling me to keep fighting and don’t be a pussy.”
And it’s races like last year’s Italian Grand Prix that underline his commitment to his cause. His capacity for success still exists. The Ricciardo we know hasn’t left; he’s just moved aside for a while.
“I’ve still got a reputation to try and keep, recover — whatever; whoever’s opinion’s what,” he said.
“I’ve been tested over the last couple of years for sure, but I’m proud to say I haven’t been broken.
“That’s where I’m proud, to have come through with my head high. I wish the 18 months would have been better, but I’m still moving on.
“I’m still okay.”
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