The rise and fall of Daniel Ricciardo: F1 title contender turned struggling star

It still wasn’t enough to beat Vergne in the season standings, as four eighth-place finishes in Malaysia, Belgium, South Korea and Brazil saw the Frenchman finish six points and a place clear of Ricciardo in 18th. But with Red Bull ace Mark Webber gearing up for retirement at the end of 2013, the two Torro Rosso drivers were suddenly competing for a team which had won every F1 world championship available since 2010 — instead of occasional points finishes.

Despite failing to finish 26.31% of the races he entered that year, Ricciardo still proved as the standout performer in the Faenza camp. A composed drive from seventh to seventh in China was soon followed by another top eight finish at Silverstone. Even with eight races remaining and Vernge ahead of him in the championship, the Red Bull bosses had seen enough. On September 3 2014, a week before the Italian GP, Ricciardo was announced as Sebastian Vettel‘s team-mate at Red Bull for 2014.

Ricciardo continued to prove that he was worthy gamble as the 2012 F1 season drew to a close. Three further top ten finishes, including another seventh-place finish at Monza, saw the Aussie double his points tally from the year before and finish seven points clear of Vernge in the drivers’ standings.

Daniel Ricciardo at Toro Rosso

Red Bull (2014 – 2018)

Ricciardo at his best

The 2014 season was the dawn of a new era in Formula 1, as the introduction of hybrid engines saw a major reshuffle of the performance order. Mercedes became the dominant power, as Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg split 16 race wins between them and marched with ease to drivers’ and constructors’ titles. They were only defeated three times. On each occasion it was Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull which took the top step.

The Aussie joined the Milton Keynes outfit as the clear number two to now four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, but he was quick to make an impression. After qualifying on the front row of the grid in Melbourne, splitting the two Mercedes while his new team-mate lined up in 13th, Ricciardo showed dazzling race pace and met the chequered flag in second — only to be disqualified later on after breaching fuel consumption rules. A puncture at the following round in Malaysia doubled his bad luck.

But, fortunately for Ricciardo, a run of form soon came. Back-to-back podium finishes came in Spain and Monaco, but were immediately trumped by a debut victory in Montreal. Starting from sixth on the grid, the 24-year-old cruised through the field ahead — taking advantage of a Mercedes brake issue — and passed Rosberg for the lead with just two laps remaining.

Further wins followed in Hungary (after starting from fourth) and in Belgium (after starting from fifth), keeping the Aussie in mathematical reach of the drivers’ title with just three races remaining — despite Mercedes’ dominance. Ultimately he had to settle for third — 71 points and two places clear of Vettel, who secured only four podiums across the year; finished ahead of Ricciardo in only five grand prix and failed to win a single race.

The F1 landscape shifted again in 2015 as Vettel moved to Ferrari, Daniil Kvyat arrived to replace him and Red Bull suffered through numerous engine troubles which dropped it back into midfield contention. Ricciardo’s performance suffered dramatically as a result: finishing eighth in the drivers’ standings (three points behind Kvyat).

But there were still remarkable highlights: a third-place finish from fourth on the grid in Hungary and a brilliant drive in Singapore, in which Ricciardo put his ailing Red Bull on the front row and then, for 61 consecutive laps, pestered Vettel’s Ferrari for the lead. The Aussie ultimately finished just 1.4sec behind his former team-mate, with the third-placed Kimi Raikkonen a further 17 seconds adrift.

Both podium finishes were proof that even with the wrong car Ricciardo could still battle amongst F1’s best. With the right car, he became a much bigger problem for his rivals to deal with.

In the three years that followed, Ricciardo reached the peak of his powers. While his chances at a drivers’ title were once again slimmed by the raging dominance of Mercedes, he still managed to secure three pole positions; victories in Malaysia, Azerbaijan, China and Monaco; and 19 accompanying podium finishes.

But following the arrival of a teenaged Max Verstappen mid-way through the 2016 season, Ricciardo’s biggest fight soon came against the driver who sat just feet away from him in the same garage. As the Dutchman’s talent grew, the Red Bull pairing naturally fought — most infamously at the 2018 Azerbaijan GP, where they both crashed out — and ahead of the 2019 campaign, Ricciardo chose to draw his chapter with the Milton Keynes outfit to a close.

Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull

Renault (2019 – 2020)

Trouble ahead

Wanting to lead a team of his own, Ricciardo joined Renault in 2019 — a decision many have later identified as the beginning of the end.

The French outfit had improved drastically in the seasons leading up to Ricciardo’s arrival — even finishing an impressive fourth in the 2018 constructors’ standings — but all form soon dissipated.

Through his first season with the team, Ricciardo finished inside the top ten only eight times and fell to ninth in the drivers’ standings. The following year, during a season disrupted by Covid 19, Renault showed some signs of improvement as Ricciardo earned podium finishes in Germany and Imola and finished an impressive yet distant fifth in the drivers’ standings. But it was ultimately not enough to convince the Aussie that the team was moving toward title contention, prompting what would be the last big move of his F1 career.

McLaren (2021 — 2022)

The downfall continues 

McLaren CEO Zak Brown had been trying to tempt Ricciardo to the Woking outfit since 2018, but it wasn’t until 2021 that he got the driver line-up he was after: an experienced race winner in Ricciardo and a rising star in Lando Norris.

Through their first handful of races together, both drivers were competitive and comparable: Ricciardo often qualifying higher, but Norris often meeting the chequered flag first. As the season rolled on, a gap in performance opened up and widened as the Aussie struggled to adapt to the idiosyncratic driving style that the car demanded.

He finished eighth in the drivers’ standings — 45 points behind Norris — although a feel-good win at Monza did, for a moment, indicate that better performances could be in store.

Unfortunately for Ricciardo, the spiral of underperformance continued, and his contract was ended “by mutual consent” two years into his three year deal. He was be replaced by Oscar Piastri for 2023.

AlphaTauri (2023 – 2024)

An early exit 

Without a full-time F1 seat for 2023, Ricciardo returned to Red Bull as a reserve driver. But it didn’t take long for the Aussie to make a return to the cockpit, as after impressing during a Pirelli tyre test at Silverstone — lapping within a tenth of Verstappen’s pole time for the British GP — he replaced a struggling Nyck de Vries at Red Bull sister team AlphaTauri.

A broken hand at Zandvoort meant he only took part in seven of the 12 races he was due to enter — with Liam Lawson stepping in as an impressive reserve — and Ricciardo was given what appeared to be a full season in 2024 to prove that he still had it with the renamed RB squad. But the spark was too rarely seen. Against younger team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, Ricciardo once again struggled and buckled.

Through the first 18 rounds of the season, he scored just 12 points compared to Tsunoda’s 22; out-qualified the Japanese driver only six times; and finished ahead of him on race day only eight times.

At one point, Ricciardo was in line for a return to Red Bull, replacing a similarly underperforming Sergio Perez. But, unable to hit the heights he once did, the RB has opted to replace him with Liam Lawson from the United States Grand Prix, perhaps to see whether he could be next in line for the Red Bull team.