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Is there a more universally liked F1 driver than Daniel Ricciardo? And what if that isn't enough?

Now competing in his 12th F1 season, the Australian is currently with McLaren, joining them from Renault. Prior to being with the French marque, he was probably best-known for being with Red Bull for several years, anchoring the team in the post-Sebastian Vettel years as Max Verstappen made his way through the ranks, in a similar path to Ricciardo, with time at Toro Rosso before graduating towards the front of the grid. 

Ricciardo became one of the stars of Netflix’s Drive to Survive, with his personality shining through beyond the F1 bubble. He appeared on the Ellen show in the US, and is F1’s most experienced Aussie driver, starting more races than the likes of world champions like Jack Brabham and Alan Jones, as well as cult heroes like Mark Webber as he became known as a daring driver - the Last of the Late Brakers. 

Despite being one of the sport’s most marketable drivers, and a genuine mainstream name outside Formula 1, it is beginning to look like his days are numbered. He has endured a terrible opening third of the 2022 season, with a sixth-placed finish in Australia and a sixth in the Imola sprint giving him just 11 points coming into the famous Monaco street race. 

Drivers from eight teams have at least one man level or ahead of him, with one of those being teammate Lando Norris. While still recovering from tonsillitis, the Brit built on eighth in Spain with sixth place and a fastest lap in Monaco. 

Norris has over 80% of the team’s points so far this season, and only Alfa Romeo have a wider disparity in teams where both drivers have scored at least one point. And there seems to be a perfect storm of events, both speculatively and publicly, that act as fuel to a rumour mill that continues to push Ricciardo toward the hypothetical exit door. Let’s start with comments from his boss.

Zak Brown has made it clear that there are “mechanisms” in Ricciardo’s contract that would give McLaren the option of vacating the seat. These are almost certain to be performance related in terms of points or championship performance, and it’s almost certain Ricciardo isn’t hitting them. 

A driver as talented as Ricciardo has eight career wins, when it should be a lot more, and although a strike rate of 32 podiums in 217 starts is good, only one of those has come with his latest team. It’s clear he has regressed, first in adjusting to his new team, then fighting with Norris, kicking COVID and fighting among a midfield that has made strides. That pressure has led to some errors and mistakes, the latest coming in Monaco, with a smash up in practice, best described as uncharacteristic.

In races, since his final season at Red Bull, which created eight retirements, his reliability has improved to the point where in the last three years, he averages one non-finish a year. But merely finishing isn’t enough. He isn’t getting close to his most immediate comparator, and he’s being out-done by drivers who really shouldn’t be streaking past him. 

A crash in practice in Monaco also feels like a bad sign, given that Ricciardo gave the sport one of its most striking images of all time after a brilliant victory in 2018. In a season with eight non-finishes, Ricciardo finished in the points in every other race, threading his brightly coloured machine through the narrow streets, pushing a somewhat broken car to that coveted top step.

If you asked a casual fan to sum up Formula 1 as a sport in the past couple of years, I think they would point to the Australian downing something from his shoe, or his dive into the pool after winning F1’s glamour race. In 2022, he finished an anonymous 13th. 

And then there is the spectre of the stalking horse. Zak Brown and McLaren have involvement in a lot of different motorsport series, and it’s clear that Brown truly loves all forms of competition. The McLaren extended universe has drivers in F1, INDYCar, Extreme E, Shadow (esports) and from next season, Formula E too. 

This gives them a different sort of driver pool to pick from. While most teams use the conventional driver ladder, McLaren don’t have any drivers in F3 or F2, with Ugo Ugochukwu in British F4 as a young driver. As a result, their drivers could come from anywhere, with INDYCar being the favourite.

First of all, Colton Herta isn’t a McLaren driver. But he seems to be one of two names most closely linked to a drive. The 22-year-old could make the jump with a possible Andretti entry, but he is going to be driving the 2021 McLaren at some point in a private test. 

“I probably could [reveal the date] but I don’t know, I might get in trouble, so I’m not going to. But it is going to be later in the year. I can say I’m going in June to Woking for a seat fit and then some simulator stuff. So, I’m looking forward to that; last time I was there was in 2019… I think I did one day of sim. I didn’t really get to see the factory which I’m hoping I get a nice tour of.” Herta, speaking to F1.com 

And of the McLaren drivers themselves, Pato O’Ward is another name to watch. The Mexican finished second with Arrow Mclaren at the Indy 500 and is currently second in the overall standings. This isn’t a suggestion that INDYCar is a feeder step to F1, but F1 has more of a global profile and the chance to be a world champion on a world stage will naturally attract the best drivers in the world. O’Ward is in house, Herta isn’t, and there’s also a third, outside option. 

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If you win Formula 3, you’re not allowed to defend your title. The same rule applies if you become Formula 2’s champion. This means that if your path to F1 gets blocked, you have to take a step elsewhere or be patient. That’s the situation Oscar Piastri finds himself in. The Australian is jet-setting around the world, getting a taste of Formula 1 without actually driving the car. Without wanting to cast two-time world champion Fernando Alonso and continual rising star Esteban Ocon as the cruel sisters, Piastri is stuck in the Cinderella role as things stand, although it might ultimately be pumpkin-coloured machinery that gets him to the ball (that’s enough of that metaphor).

At the start of the season, Ricciardo had COVID-19, and Piastri was announced as a potential reserve driver. With a drive at Alpine blocked, Piastri could jump straight to McLaren and provide a brilliant storyline, duelling with the drivers quite literally standing in his way. And with Sergio Perez locked up at Red Bull for at least another couple of years, Pierre Gasly is also being linked with a McLaren seat that technically, isn’t actually vacant, but - behind the Bulls, Mercs and Ferraris - is probably the fastest seat in danger on the grid. 

So where does that leave Daniel Ricciardo? Ever-smiling, always with a media-friendly soundbite and one of the sport’s global ambassadors…well, it puts him in a corner, and the secret helmet messages have started, or they haven’t… 

Whether it’s a three-letter scrawled acronym of defiance is open to interpretation, but what wasn’t in doubt was his Monaco result, outside the points. 

June brings two fast street circuits with the weird back-to-back of Baku and Montreal. Ricciardo knows what it’s like to win in Azerbaijan and Canada, winning a chaotic race from 10th on the grid in 2017 at the former, while the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was the venue for his first F1 win, way back in 2014. 

It’s that sort of form Ricciardo needs to rediscover. While his F1 victory at Monza last season was McLaren’s first win in a decade, it was only his eighth race win overall and while he is unlikely to win in his current vehicle, Ricciardo needs to be closer than his teammate if he is to get to next year and beyond as a McLaren driver.

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🏁 Ricciardo was responsible for McLaren's last win, in Monza 2021🏁 He's pretty handy in the sprints🏁 The last race - Monaco - needs improving