A story without a happy ending
2024 marked Daniel Ricciardo’s final year in Formula 1. The Australian, who won eight Grands Prix during his career, was unceremoniously dropped by Racing Bulls before the end of the season to make way for the full-time debut of young New Zealand talent Liam Lawson. Daniel Ricciardo’s career remains one of the most peculiar and arguably incomplete in F1 history, given the talent he displayed at various moments of his journey in the sport and the ultimately ill-fated decision to leave Red Bull at the end of the 2018 season in search of success first with Renault and then McLaren. His return to the Red Bull fold in 2023 was not enough to reignite his career at the top level.
One person who has consistently shown a sporting fondness for Daniel Ricciardo is Christian Horner. The British manager did not want to see the Perth-born talent leave for other ventures and made several attempts to give him opportunities during his “second career” under the Red Bull umbrella. Unfortunately, the #3 driver from Perth never returned to the level he displayed in his early F1 years. In a lengthy interview on the official F1 podcast, *F1 Nation*, Horner himself reminisced about how strong Daniel Ricciardo was at his peak.
Christian Horner’s favorite memories
“For me, in 2014, he was the best driver on the grid: that was his peak,” Horner stated. That year, Daniel Ricciardo finished third in the championship, won three Grands Prix, and convincingly outperformed his teammate, four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel. The title was contested between the two Mercedes drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, who enjoyed an unbeatable technical advantage, but during those months, Daniel Ricciardo emerged as the standout young talent in F1.
“Our biggest concern when he came to drive for us was that we knew he was fast, but we’d never seen him overtake anyone, so we didn’t know how good he was in wheel-to-wheel battles,” Horner recalled. “But as soon as he got in our car, he didn’t stop overtaking others. He always braked late. I think of his win in Hungary in 2014, his first career victory in Montreal, or the race he won in China in 2018.”
Horner agreed, however, that Ricciardo’s most remarkable win was probably the 2018 Monaco Grand Prix, where he avenged his 2016 defeat by holding off Sebastian Vettel despite significant power unit issues. “It was an incredible moment,” Horner concluded. “It felt like the universe was correcting past wrongs with that victory.”
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