Daniel Ricciardo opened up on the events leading to his retirement from Formula 1, revealing that he is grateful Racing Bulls took the decision out of his hands by releasing him.
In a candid interview, the eight‑time F1 race‑winner spoke about the emotional toll of being let go twice in quick succession, the physical and mental exhaustion that had built up over several seasons.
Ricciardo left Red Bull in 2018 to join Renault, before moving onto McLaren where he struggled for two years and was ultimately left without a full-time seat for 2023.
The Australian returned to Red Bull as a reserve driver and later secured a seat with Racing Bulls, however, he struggled to consistently match the pace of his teammate Yuki Tsunoda, prompting the team to replace him with Liam Lawson after the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix.
From the outside, Ricciardo’s F1 exit looked like the final chapter of a slow fade‑out but what many did not see was the internal debate he was wrestling with long before Singapore.
Speaking on the DRIVE podcast hosted by Ford CEO Jim Farley, Daniel Ricciardo described feeling emotionally drained by the events of the previous two years, beginning with McLaren’s decision to let him go at the end of 2022 despite taking victory at Monza in 2021.
“I definitely had to try and understand a lot in the last 12 months about the career coming to an end, and its timing, because you’re not really going to get it back once it’s gone for the most part,” he explained.
“So 2022, I struggled a lot in my second year at McLaren. They let me go. So then 2023, I started without a seat and I was like, ‘Is this maybe it? Do I just call it now?’ But I knew there was still some burning desire in me.
“And that’s where I really needed to try and look at myself in the mirror, and was like, ‘OK, forget what the people say and what they want, what do you want?'”
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Despite contemplating retirement from Formula 1, Ricciardo still found enough motivation to return as a reserve driver for AlphaTauri (currently Racing Bulls) before stepping into the race seat when Nyck de Vries was dropped ahead of the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix.
However, his return was disrupted by a crash at Zandvoort which left him with a broken hand, sidelining him for several grands prix and interrupted the rhythm he was trying to rebuild.
“So I got back into the seat halfway through the season,” Ricciardo said. “I got a drive, second or third race in, I broke my hand, and it was such a nothing accident, but I missed however many races.
“So that happened, and I was like, ‘Well, I’ve never really hurt myself racing all these years, and I have a silly crash, is this now a bit of a sign? Should I just quit while I’m ahead nearly?’
“And I was like, ‘No, there’s still unfinished business,’ and I pushed through it.”
By the time he returned to full‑time racing with Racing Bulls in 2024 his performance had taken a huge hit and was eventually replaced by Lawson.
“Ultimately, I got let go,” he said. “That was the reality at the time. I think once that happened, I’d been let go twice in the last two years, and it had also taken a lot out of me.
“I’d put a lot of my soul into it. I was pretty exhausted by it. In reflection, I was grateful that they made the decision for me. I think it would have been hard to be like, ‘I’m done.’
“I think I knew I was probably done because I knew it was harder for me to perform at the level I could.“
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