Daniel Ricciardo: The rise and fall of Australia’s F1 star, including shoeys, sackings and the promise of glory
Whether it was shoeys on podiums, riding a horse down pitlane or being a Netflix star, Daniel Ricciardo had a profound impact on the world of F1. Sacked again, perhaps for the final time, we look back at his hectic life.
He is the Formula 1 driver with the megawatt smile, who made drinking champagne from a shoe famous and is nicknamed after a small carnivorous mammal owing to his tenacity on the track.
Otherwise known as the ‘Honey Badger’, Australian Daniel Ricciardo has breathed more personality into the worldwide F1 circus than any driver in recent memory.
The boy from Perth has been the unofficial prankster on the grid, unafraid to ham it up for the cameras, cracking gags in press conferences and none of his fellow drivers have ever been safe from his practical jokes.
He once leached some, er, fumes of his own in a post-race media session, reduced Lando Norris to tears when he inquired as to whether he had a certain type of body hair, had Max Verstappen in stitches racing caravans and kicked footballs with NFL legend Tom Brady on multimillion-dollar yachts.
And no one could ever forget his famous pronunciation of Pierre Gasly and Nico Hulkenberg or his hilarious one-liners over the team radio.
Quite simply, Formula 1 has not seen a character like the driver from down under.
Yet, for all his iconic lines and viral moments, Ricciardo the racer had the goods to match his off-track antics behind the wheel, especially during a successful five-year-stint at Red Bull.
Eight career Grand Prix victories and 32 podiums speak to that.
But the wattage on Ricciardo’s infectious smile has dimmed significantly in recent years as his F1 career spiralled, all linking back to his 2018 decision to walk away from Red Bull.
Now at the age of 35, Ricciardo is facing the end of his F1 career – sacked for the second time after RB decided to replace the Aussie with six rounds to go in 2024 and replace him with Kiwi young gun Liam Lawson ahead of the next race in Austin, Texas.
An emotional Ricciardo knew the axe was coming when he was probed about his future after the Singapore Grand Prix, which many have tipped to be his last in F1.
He confirmed the news on Instagram in the early hours of Friday AEST.
“I’ve loved this sport my whole life. It’s wild and wonderful and been a journey,” Ricciardo wrote.
“It’s always have its highs and lows but it’s been fun and truth be told I wouldn’t change it.
“Until the next adventure.”
If it is the end, it has been a career of highs, lows and laughs for the Aussie larrikin.
EARLY CAREER
Racing was in Ricciardo’s blood from the moment he started karting at age 9.
Growing up in Duncraig in Perth, Ricciardo would often attend Barbagallo Raceway in Wanneroo where his father, Giuseppe, would race.
Giuseppe, or “Joe” as he is known, and mother Grace supported his pursuits in karting and by the age of 13 he was already travelling across the country to race in events and by the age of 17 in 2006 his career had already taken him overseas where he raced in the UK and then the Renault series in Italy where his talent was immediately identified by the Red Bull team.
A product of the Red Bull junior system, Ricciardo worked his way up through the European formulae before making his F1 debut at the 2011 British Grand Prix at Silverstone for HRT who he had been contracted out to, finishing 19th.
He would go on to complete another 10 races for the now-defunct HRT in 2011 before it was confirmed he would drive for Red Bull’s junior team Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2012.
Ricciardo spent two seasons with the sister team, finishing 18th in his first campaign which he improved to 14th the following year.
The young Aussie earned the nickname the Honey Badger early in his Red Bull days on account of his fearless late-braking and overtaking.
“It is supposed to be the most fearless animal in the animal kingdom,” Ricciardo told Red Bull in 2014.
“When you look at it, he seems quite cute and cuddle, but as soon as someone crosses his territory in a way he doesn’t like, he turns into a bit of a savage.
“He’ll go after anything – tigers and pythons, he turns very quickly, but he’s a good guy.”
RED BULL YEARS
Ricciardo joined Red Bull as fellow Australian Mark Webber’s replacement in 2014 as a partner for four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel.
Despite some initial heartbreak when he was disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix for a fuel flow breach after finishing second, Ricciardo made an instant impact in his first year with the team, finishing third in the drivers’ championship, outperforming his world champion teammate.
Ricciardo secured the first win of his F1 career at the Canadian Grand Prix and followed with another two wins in Hungary and Belgium.
Reflecting on his maiden race victory in Montreal the following year, Ricciardo described it as a pivotal moment for his F1 career.
“That was a game changer for my career,” Ricciardo told this masthead in 2015.
“Not only did it put me on the map, but for me personally, the confidence I drew from that win will carry me through to the rest of my career.”
Ricciardo was unable to replicate the success of his first season with Red Bull in 2015 when he finished eighth in the championship and failed to score a win.
But he bounced back in 2016 when he again finished third in the championship, winning at the Malaysian Grand Prix as he welcomed a new teammate – a Dutch wunderkind by the name of Max Verstappen five races into the season as Russian Daniil Kvyat’s replacement.
Ricciardo took another race win the following year in Azerbaijan and won two of the first six races in 2018, including the most famous win of his career at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Ricciardo’s win at the most glamorous Grand Prix of them all was a celebration two years in the making, delivering redemption for his missed opportunity two years earlier when a pit stop blunder cost him a certain victory after he had secured pole position.
He celebrated his win with an iconic moment when he performed a swan dive into the swimming pool in his race suit.
“The swimming pool scene was obviously fun and pretty iconic for any Red Bull driver winning there,” Ricciardo recalled in 2021.
“It was just more the people, that was the amount of people around there. That was the first time in my life I felt like a rock star, movie star, whatever you want to call it.
“It was overwhelming how many people were there to celebrate my victory and it was wild.”
If Monaco was the high for Ricciardo’s in 2018, then the low came in Baku when he and Verstappen were involved in a spectacular crash which wiped out both Red Bull cars.
Both drivers were reprimanded by the stewards for the collision, but that was nothing compared to the dressing down they got from a furious team boss Christian Horner.
“We allow them to race, we allow them to go wheel to wheel. We discussed in the pre-race meetings about giving each other space and this was the culmination of two guys taking things into their own hands which shouldn’t have happened,” Horner said.
“They are both in the dog house, you can see that in their body language and they will be in the factory to apologise to all the staff prior to the Barcelona race.”
It turned out to be a pivotal moment for Ricciardo in a contract year.
Ricciardo was reportedly unhappy with the treatment that he received in the aftermath of the crash for what he felt was Verstappen’s fault and the feeling the team was starting to lean into the young Dutchman.
But no one could have predicted the bombshell Ricciardo would drop later that year.
THE SHOWMAN
It didn’t take long for Ricciardo to establish himself as one of the characters of F1.
His beaming grin drew people in and he quickly emerged as a fan favourite on the grid. There are more viral Danny Ric moments filling the internet than just about any other driver and they will keep you amused for days.
He danced, he laughed, he rode a horse down pitlane in the US and while he was a ferocious racer on the track, he has never taken himself too seriously off of it.
So, it comes as no surprise that Ricciardo was a driving force behind the initial success of the hit Netflix docuseries Drive to Survive.
If the series is credited with helping fuel the sport’s booming popularity around the globe, then Ricciardo can be credited with helping it take off.
He became a huge name in US, the main market F1 bosses desperately wanted to crack via Netflix, and would appear on late night talk shows and even brought host James Corden to the track.
Ricciardo’s 2018 campaign and his shock decision to leave Red Bull were major storylines in the first season of Drive to Survive.
“Without Daniel I think there probably wouldn’t have been a Drive to Survive,” the series’ executive producer Paul Martin told the New York Post in 2023.
“He was the first driver that we talked to about it, the first driver that invited us to his home in Australia.”
But before Drive to Survive, there was the signature ‘shoey’.
It was the podium celebration Ricciardo introduced to F1, helping make it an international hit.
Ricciardo debuted the boot-drinking custom at the German Grand Prix in 2016 and since then he has shared a shoey – the celebratory act of drinking champagne out of a sweaty race shoe – with anyone who would join him on the podium.
Christian Horner, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Mark Webber and even Hollywood star Gerard Butler have all been roped into the act with Ricciardo on the dais.
Ricciardo explained the origins of his shoey celebration in 2016 – and what it tasted like.
“It basically comes from a few Aussies called the Mad Hueys,” Ricciardo said.
“They basically travel the world fishing and surfing and they like to drink a lot of beer – so that’s where the shoey began.
“Jack Miller knows some of the Huey guys so when he got his (Moto GP) win in Assen, I suspected he was going to do it – I just thought I’d keep the Australian tradition going.
“If the sparkling wine is cold, then it tastes good. If it’s warm then you might get the sweat through it but the cold taste kills the bad stuff … so it’s delicious.”
But Ricciardo’s effervescence hasn’t been to everyone’s tastes.
Former world champion Alan Jones has previously said the Australian star needed to tone down his “performing out of the car”.
“I just would like to see a little less of the theatrics and a bit more of the driving,” Jones told this masthead after the news Ricciardo would replace Dutchman Nyck de Vries at Red Bull’s sister team AlphaTauri midway through last season.
“I think for a while there, he got a bit carried away with, how shall I say it, performing out of the car rather than in it.
“I think he has got to settle down a bit and concentrate on what he is doing in the car and not so much about what he is doing out of the car.
“If it encroaches on your performance of driving, it may or may not be what it is all about, but (Lewis) Hamilton doesn’t do it, Lando (Norris) doesn’t do it, Max (Verstappen) certainly doesn’t do it.”
THE SHOCK DECISION
It wasn’t a move the Formula 1 world saw coming.
In August, 2018, Ricciardo made the shock announcement he was leaving Red Bull to join Renault, despite having a generous offer on the table from Red Bull.
What many had thought would be a customary contract extension at Red Bull turned out to be the biggest turning point in his career.
Renault confirmed it had signed Ricciardo on a two-year deal to drive alongside German Nico Hulkenberg with the Australian selling the move as a chance for a fresh challenge.
“It was probably one of the most difficult decisions to take in my career so far,” Ricciardo said at the time.
“I thought it was time for me to take on a fresh and new challenge.
“I realise there is a lot ahead in order to allow Renault to reach their target of competing at the highest level but I have been impressed by their progression in only two years and I know each time Renault has been in the sport they eventually won.
“I hope to be able to help them in this journey and contribute on and off track.”
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner last year reflected on Ricciardo’s call to leave Red Bull and revealed he had been offered the same terms as Max Verstappen to stay at the team.
Horner said he initially thought Ricciardo was “taking the piss” when he first told him he was leaving to join Renault and revealed Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz had tried to persuade the Perth racer to stay by offering him the same terms as Verstappen, who’s star was on the rise.
“We gave Max a contract at the beginning of that year in 2018 to secure his future. Daniel, I remember being upset at the time. He suddenly felt that, ‘Hang on, I don’t want to be the support act here’,” Horner told ‘the eff won with DRS’ podcast.
“I could tell he was starting to think of being a bigger fish in a smaller pond. He got a lot of noise in his ear that this is the Max show. Money (from Renault) was also on the table.
“I remember I spoke to our owner Dietrich Mateschitz before the Austrian Grand Prix, and I said ‘It’s looking a bit marginal with Daniel, can you just show him some love? Because you know, Helmut (Marko), obviously very pro Max. But I think if you could just balance things out, just let him know that you want him.’
“(He said) ‘no problems. I’ll speak to him’. So he took him upstairs after the race in Austria and they were gone for well over an hour and then they re-emerged, they reappeared both with smiles on their faces.
“Dietrich comes up to me, I said, ‘Well, how did it go?’ And he said, ‘No problem. It’s not even a question’. I said ‘Well, what did you agree with him?’. He said, ‘I said we’ll give him whatever Max is on. I was like, ‘Wow, do you know what we pay Max?’
“And he went, ‘No, how much do we pay Max?’. I gave him the number and he said ‘Who the f**k agreed to that?’. And I said, ‘Well, you did’.
“He said, ‘No, he’s a great guy. Let’s do it. Let’s give him the same deal that Max has’.”
Horner initially thought Ricciardo was having him on when he broke the news and believed he had been “badly advised” at the time.
“Because Daniel’s got a sense of humour, I was convinced he’s taking the piss here,” Horner said of his initial reaction.
“You’re not going to Renault, stop f***ing about, just tell me when you are going to sign that contract’. So after about 10 minutes, he finally persuaded me that he was gonna go to Renault and it was disappointing.
“There was an element of (spite) at the time, thinking, ‘You know what? Okay. Go and suck on a lemon for a bit’.
“He was very badly advised in his earlier career. Everybody f***s up at some point.”
STRUGGLE YEARS
Horner might have only been half-serious with the “suck on a lemon” vibe, but even he couldn’t have predicted how Ricciardo’s career would sink over the next four years.
Two underwhelming years at Renault would be followed by an even tougher two-year stint at McLaren.
Ricciardo finished ninth in the championship in his first year at Renault, failing to score a podium in his first year with the French squad.
He broke through for two podiums in his second season when he finished fifth in the driver standings, but the move to Renault hadn’t delivered what Ricciardo had wanted.
The announcement of his move to McLaren came early in the 2020 campaign with papaya outfit spruiking his signing in May on a “multi-year” deal as a coup for the team.
“Signing Daniel is another step forward in our long-term plan and will bring an exciting new dimension to the team, alongside Lando (Norris),” McLaren chief executive Zak Brown said.
“This is good news for your team, partners and of course our fans.”
But the reality didn’t live up to the hype and his F1 career continued to slide.
There was one highlight when Ricciardo broke through for his first win in four years to take the Italian Grand Prix victory in 2021.
Ricciardo later reflected on his Monza win as one of the biggest moments of his career.
“That’s not just because I won the race. It’s more the fact that I’m sure 99 per cent of people would not have put me down to win a race this year, so that’s why I’m most proud of that moment – I found a way to overcome some of the lows and make the most of the opportunity when it came,” Ricciardo said in an interview with McLaren in December, 2021.
“The more time that passes since Monza, the more that I actually realise the effect of that. And I really do think it was the biggest moment, win, race, day of my motorsport career.”
His second year at McLaren would fail to net a podium and he would slip from eighth in the standings in his first season with the team to 11th in his second.
In August, 2021, McLaren announced Ricciardo’s 2023 contract had been “terminated early as both parties mutually agreed that he will leave the team at the end of the 2022 Formula 1 season”.
He would be replaced by another Australian – Melbourne young gun Oscar Piastri.
“Obviously we put in a lot of effort on both sides, but it just hasn’t worked the way we wanted so the team has decided to make a change for next year,” Ricciardo posted on his social media after the McLaren announcement.
“We had a lot of discussion, but in the end we mutually agreed it was the right thing for both of us.
“I look back on this time with McLaren, I look back with a smile. I learnt a lot about myself, I think things that will help me for the next step in my career, but I think just in general, in life.
“From a results point of view, to consistently get the results in that form that I was after, it wasn’t always there and it made some weekends tough and I felt those, absolutely.
“But I also have many happy memories of my time at the team and I think about Monza and I think about us standing on the top step, I think about bringing the team their first win since 2012 and that sort of stuff was awesome.
“The sport, I still love it. This hasn’t affected any of that. I still have the fire in me, that belief in my belly that I can do this at the highest level.”
THE LIFELINE
After being dumped by McLaren with a year left to run on his deal, Ricciardo was handed a lifeline of sorts by his former team boss Christian Horner in late 2022.
It was announced in November Ricciardo would make a return to the Red Bull family as its third driver for the 2023 season.
In announcing his return, Red Bull said Ricciardo would assist with testing and simulator work as well as commercial activity, while also giving him time to “recharge and refocus”.
During his sabbatical from the F1 grid, Ricciardo made no secret of his dream for a “fairytale ending” to finish his career with the team where he made his name.
While he stressed during his time away from racing that he coveted a return to a competitive team on the F1 grid, it emerged he was open to the prospect of racing for sister team Alpha Tauri (now RB) to keep himself in the Red Bull family and provide a potential springboard for a Red Bull return.
“This for me would be like the fairytale,” Ricciardo told ESPN about the prospect of racing for Red Bull again.
“Honestly, the fairytale ending (would be) to finish my career here if I could have it all my own way.
“But we’ll see. I’ll probably have to work my way up a little bit, but it’s really nice to be back here.
“I know I can come back as a more complete version of myself.”
Ricciardo got the opportunity to show what he could still do in the best equipment when he jumped behind the wheel of Red Bull’s title-leading RB19 for the first time in a mid-year Pirelli tyre test at Silverstone.
The Aussie was able to immediately produce what team boss Christian Horner described as “extremely competitive” times, helping seal his return to the F1 grid.
Later in the week it was confirmed Ricciardo would be loaned to the Red Bull junior team for the remainder of the 2023 season to replace struggling Dutchman Nyck de Vries, giving him the chance to revive his F1 career.
De Vries was ejected from his seat after failing to score a point in the opening 10 races of his rookie season.
Ricciardo would have the chance to prove his credentials for a full-time return to the grid in 2024 in the last 12 races of the year.
THE COMEBACK
Australian F1 fans rejoiced with the news Ricciardo would be back on the F1 grid from the Hungarian GP, but he also faced a warning over the potential for his return to backfire.
Sky Sports F1 pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz expressed his concerns over the move and the danger for Ricciardo jumping into what he then labelled the “slowest car on the grid”.
He said there was a big difference between Ricciardo performing well in the “best car by a country mile in Formula One” to the one at the bottom of the pack.
“This is all well and good basing it on the (testing times in the) Red Bull RB19, which is the class of the field, (but Ricciardo’s) not driving that car,” Kravitz said on the Sky F1 podcast.
“He’s driving probably one of the slowest cars on the grid, if not the slowest, which is the AlphaTauri.
“The AlphaTauri…had some upgrades at Silverstone and they finished further down than they normally do with a non-upgraded car. This is not a great AlphaTauri, it’s fair to say.
“My only question is, not that they shouldn’t have replaced Nyck de Vries – clearly it wasn’t working ....the surprise is why Daniel Ricciardo would want to go into that car and a car that is worse than the McLaren he left last year, probably.”
But his return to the track was short-lived after striking trouble at the Dutch Grand Prix.
Ricciardo suffered a broken left hand after crashing in practice at Zandvoort, slamming the brakes on his comeback not even three races in.
He had crashed into the wall at turn three, saying he had tried to avoid hitting Oscar Piastri, who moments earlier had smashed his McLaren into the barrier at the same bend.
Ricciardo underwent surgery in Barcelona two days later to have what Christian Horner later revealed was “several screws and a plate fitted”.
Posting a picture to his social media from his hospital bed after the operation with his wrist in a cast and a sling, Ricciardo declared the injury was not “a setback, just all part of the comeback”.
“Had surgery this morning, got my first bit of metal work so that’s pretty cool,” Ricciardo wrote on Instagram.
“Big thanks to everyone who reached out and kept my spirits up.
“This ain’t a setback, just all part of the comeback.”
Reserve driver Liam Lawson was drafted in to replace Ricciardo, who would end up missing five races before making a return at the United States Grand Prix when he finished 15th.
The next race in Mexico, Ricciardo cracked a top-10 finish when he placed seventh before finishing 13th, 14th and 11th in the final three races in Brazil, Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi.
While he was sidelined, the team confirmed Ricciardo’s spot on the grid for 2024 alongside Tsunoda in September.
THE END
Red Bull started 2024 with five drivers in their family but only four contracts for 2025.
World champion Verstappen was locked in long term, leaving Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez fighting for a new deal while Tsunoda and Ricciardo were both also off contract as reserve driver Lawson sat waiting in the wings on a promise he would be on the grid in 2025.
Ricciardo had made no secret he wanted a promotion back to being Verstappen’s teammate, while Tsunoda also felt he was worthy if the team moved on from Mexican Perez.
Perez and Tsunoda both started the season strongly and were rewarded with new deals, leaving Ricciardo as the man most likely to get the punt at seasons end.
But then Perez started to struggle.
By mid-season he’d fallen beyond the 100-point deficit threshold to Verstappen in his contract, the team was under siege in the constructors’ battle and the door was open for him to be sacked.
At the same time, Ricciardo suddenly rediscovered his best form racing to a shock fourth place in the Miami sprint race.
At the mid-year break rumours emerged that Perez was out, Ricciardo was in and Lawson would join Tsunoda at RB.
But Red Bull bosses stood firm in support of Perez, even as the Constructors’ championship lead slipped away to McLaren in a result which will cost the team millions in prize money.
Leading into the Singapore Grand Prix it was reported Ricciardo would be sacked in the three week break before the Austin Grand Prix, with Lawson set to get a head start on his permanent move to RB driver’s seat for 2025.
The team would only confirm that a review would happen between events, neither confirming nor denying Ricciardo was about to race for the final time.
In what may be his final act behind the wheel, Ricciardo was the last car home in 18th place but had executed the fastest lap of the race earning a him a cash bonus in his RB contract but also denied McLaren’s Lando Norris a crucial point in the driver’s title race with Verstappen.
Ricciardo battled through emotional post-race interviews, tears welling in his eyes, knowing it may have been his final race in F1 as team staff welcomed him back to their marquee with a standing ovation.
Vision emerged of Ricciardo taking time to savour what could be his final moments in the cockpit post-race.
He took off his gloves and rested his hands on his thighs before taking his time to get out of the car.
“I’m prepared for it,” said Ricciardo.
“That’s why I think, over the weekend, I just tried to acknowledge a few things with myself, also why I came back into the sport. Sometimes you’ve got to see the big picture.
“
I always said, I don’t just want to be a guy that’s here on the grid fighting for a point every now and then, which has kind of been how this year’s gone.
“Obviously, this year, the purpose was to try and do good enough to get back into Red Bull and fight for wins again and see if I’ve still got it. I feel I came up short with that.
“So I then think, ‘Okay, what else am I fighting for here? What else is going to give me fulfilment?’
“I’ve been a young driver as well, and at some point, I don’t just want to take up space. You obviously have to be selfish, but for me, if I’m not able to fight at the front with Red Bull, I have to ask myself, ‘What am I staying on the grid for?’ That’s also something I’ve come to peace with.”
They all knew it was likely the end, but no one of authority would say it.
The secrecy and uncertainty was far from the dignified exit he deserved after a remarkable career that truly captivated a worldwide audience and helped F1 become a global giant of world sport.
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