The 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix could be Daniel Ricciardo’s last race in Formula 1.
Whether or not this is his final drive is predicated on an enormous gamble with a slim chance of success.
You know the story by now. Ricciardo’s two years and McLaren have been so battering and bruising that the team will pay him not to race next year.
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With the driver market bereft of competitive options, Ricciardo has gone all-in on fashioning a grand return rather than clinging to spot on the grid at any cost.
He’ll spend next year on the sidelines to re-energise himself — to hone himself physically and mentally after a damaging couple of years — and be primed for a return.
To keep himself in the fast-moving driver market he will also have to take up a reserve driver role to remain in the paddock, with Mercedes and Red Bull Racing the frontrunners for his signature.
But the market is fluid, particularly with Mick Schumacher now also a free agent, and there’s no deal yet done.
“Still nothing‘s confirmed, but progress is being made, so we’ll see,” Ricciardo said this weekend. “Hopefully you can see my good looks again next year to some degree.”
The odds of success are inextricably linked to which option he chooses.
Mercedes has been the long-running favourite to secure his services. With Stoffel Vandoorne taking up reserve duties at Aston Martin and Nyck de Vries racing for AlphaTauri next year, the German marque is down a reserve driver for 2023.
Ricciardo, and eight-time winner and hugely marketable personality, would be an asset who would far exceed the requirements for entry.
A Mercedes switch would also align Ricciardo with Toto Wolff, one of Formula 1’s most powerful figures.
As the head of Mercedes with a hand in driver management, Wolff would be an influential ally in Ricciardo’s quest to return to a racing role in 2024.
The Austrian has taken Valtteri Bottas, Esteban Ocon and George Russell under his wing in recent years, and all three have become race winners in stable homes. Ricciardo could do worse than put himself into Wolff’s orbit.
But inescapable is the fact that Mercedes itself is extremely unlikely to have a seat available at the end of next season. Russell is the team’s long-term future, and though Lewis Hamilton will be out of contract, the seven-time champion says he intends to sign a new multiyear deal.
Ricciardo would have to hope Hamilton wins his eighth championship next year and decides to call it a day to have any chance of breaking in at Brackley.
His alternative is to throw his lot in with former F1 family Red Bull.
Ricciardo crashes out on opening lap! | 00:38
Red Bull brought Ricciardo into Formula 1 and turned him into a household name. It was with Red Bull Racing that he forged his reputation as an intimidating, aggressive racer that saw him rule the driver market around the turn of the decade.
Milton Keynes is said to be keen to welcome him back into the fold as a reserve driver, a role in which he would bridge the gap between Max Verstappen and the young talent program, the members of which have apparently failed to capture the attention of motorsport adviser Helmut Marko.
The fact AlphaTauri has poached Formula E champion Nyck de Vries rather than promote from the pipeline is telling. The team’s medium-term commitment to Sergio Perez also reveals a lack of ambition for the brand’s young drivers.
The Red Bull program knows intimately how good Ricciardo can be in one of its cars. He would be a useful external bar for development and a highly credentialed reserve driver.
But while Red Bull is a powerful Formula 1 stakeholder, it’s less influential on the grid than Wolff and Mercedes, who have reliably long reach to other teams.
Red Bull Racing is also fully subscribed in 2024, with Perez’s deal not due to expire until the end of that year.
But if you were Ricciardo, you might be tempted to believe Red Bull Racing’s Brazil bust-up could be a foot in the door, particularly if Perez were disgruntled or demotivated by the team’s handling of recent events.
And in the hypothetical eventuality that we get a three-team, six-driver championship battle next year, it wouldn’t be too harsh to say Perez would be the least rated among the contenders, and finishing sixth would likely cost Red Bull Racing the constructors championship.
It might be enough to loosen his hold on that seat. Being the third driver behind the scenes might be a wise place to be positioned to capitalise.
Ricciardo crashes out on opening lap! | 00:38
Of course Ricciardo might also look at the last week and see it as a reminder of why he left the increasingly Verstappen-dominated Red Bull program to begin with, but then beggars can’t be choosers.
These are Ricciardo’s only two options to keep himself in the paddock and in the conversation for 2024. But as you can tell, the transition from reserve driver back to full-time race drive would require several things to fall in his favour, particularly given the dearth of competitive options elsewhere.
The odds are still stacked against his return.
Which brings us back to where we started: this could be Daniel Ricciardo’s final grand prix.
“Mentally I‘m not treating it like it’s going to be my last ever race,” he said. “But it could be. I know that nothing’s guaranteed in the future. So I’m just going out to enjoy it.
“I‘m not going to get too emotional about the thought of, ‘Oh, is it the last one or not?’.
“But I do want to enjoy it and just take it for what it is.”
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If this were to become Ricciardo’s last race, it would be a shame not just for the talented Aussie, whose abilities behind the wheel entitled him to dream of more than eight grands prix victories, but also for Formula 1, for which he’s been a breath of fresh air.
Ricciardo is one of the sport’s biggest personalities and most popular figures. He’s a genuine character in a sea of over-engineered public relations. Even in his darkest McLaren days his smile has barely flickered.
It’s rare to describe a driver without a championship as a superstar, but this West Aussie fits the bill.
For all that, Ricciardo, his fans and Formula 1 deserve more than for him to fade quietly into retirement from the sidelines.
He deserves a proper farewell befitting his stature. His gamble better work, because this ain’t it.
