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The 34-year-old Australian is trying to rebuild his F1 career after being dumped by the McLaren team in favour of rookie sensation and countryman Oscar Piastri at the end of 2022.
Ricciardo made a high-profile return midway through last season with the back-of-the-grid AlphaTauri team, which has this season changed its name to RB, and is now working to rebuild his race-winning reputation following four seasons in the relative wilderness.
Though he won the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, Ricciardo has not enjoyed consistent success since quitting Red Bull at the end of 2018.
Two years at Renault in 2019 and 2020 offered promise, but a switch to McLaren for 2021 proved disastrous, save the surprise result in Italy, and threatened to end his career.
Now Ricciardo is looking to re-establish himself on the Formula 1 grid and convince everyone he is still the driver who dominated four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel when they were team-mates in 2014.
To do so, his task is simple: beat Yuki Tsunoda.
Ricciardo and Tsunoda are partnered at RB this season. Both have made public their desire to graduate to Red Bull Racing next year in place of Sergio Perez.
Based out of Italy, RB is owned by the Red Bull drinks company, which also owns Red Bull Racing, the team that has won the last three drivers’ championships on the bounce with Max Verstappen.
Red Bull Racing last year won 22 of 23 grands prix, the most dominant performance in Formula 1’s more-than 70-year history. And from the opening two races so far this season, it has a good shot of repeating – or bettering – that feat in 2024.
It makes the team extremely desirable for drivers chasing success, and RB the perfect place to be for Ricciardo since Red Bull has traditionally promoted from within its own ranks.
A string of good performances will see Ricciardo front of mind when it comes to deciding who will partner Verstappen there next season, as Perez’s current contract expires at the end of 2024.
It’s no secret that Perez has been inconsistent since joining Red Bull Racing in 2021.
A six-time race winner, five of them with Red Bull Racing, the Mexican briefly mounted a challenge to Verstappen for the world championship last year, only for that to fall away as he made a number of high-profile errors.
He currently sits second to Verstappen in the 2024 championship standings, having trailed his team leader to the chequered flag in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to start the year.
Perez, Ricciardo, and Tsunoda are the three drivers vying for arguably the most coveted seat in Formula 1.
To secure it, Ricciardo has to prove he can consistently deliver the results the team needs and, in all probability, a willingness to drive in support of Verstappen.
At 26, Verstappen is already a three-time world champion and on course for a fourth. He is the established benchmark having taken the mantle from seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton.
However, Formula 1 is a team sport. Millions of dollars in prize money is paid out to teams not based on the drivers’ championship performance, but the constructors’ championship, which combines the points from both its drivers through the course of the season.
Last year, Red Bull Racing could have won that competition with Verstappen alone, such was the Dutchman’s brilliance.
Perez did finish second in the drivers’ championship to his team-mate, the first time Red Bull Racing has had a championship one-two in its history, but it was a close-run thing with Hamilton despite the Mexican having the most dominant car in F1 history at his disposal.
The success Red Bull Racing enjoyed in 2023 was unparalleled and afforded it the luxurious position of not needing to rely on its second driver to secure the constructors’ championship, and the more than $200 million in prize money that comes with it.
However, with the competition looking somewhat closer this season, Perez’s contribution is expected to be far more important.
With tens of millions of dollars at stake, the pressure is on the 34-year-old to deliver. That intensity is only increased by Ricciardo and Tsunoda knocking on the door, desperate to replace him.
For Ricciardo to put himself in the best position to be chosen for the drive he has to comprehensively beat Tsunoda.
The RB is an inferior car so Ricciardo has no chance of competing with Perez on track. Instead, his challenge is to be the best alternative to the status quo.
To do that, he must demonstrate he still has the edge that took him to seven grand prix wins from 2014 to 2018 with Red Bull Racing and vanquish the demons that nearly ended his career at McLaren.
That starts with obliterating Tsunoda on track; qualifying ahead of the Japanese driver and then racing clear to deliver RB its most important results.
So far in 2024, that has not been the case. Tsunoda qualified ahead of Ricciardo in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. In Albert Park yesterday, he did so again.
In the opening race of the year, Ricciardo only snuck ahead because RB instructed Tsunoda to move aside in a late roll of the dice, but it netted no benefit as they finished 13th and 14th, respectively.
Next time out, Tsunoda was one place ahead of Ricciardo in the classification thanks to a post-race time penalty for the Japanese driver, while Ricciardo blotted his copybook with a clumsy spin on the penultimate lap.
In reality, the gap between the RB pair was far greater than that result suggested.
The Saudi Arabian GP was heavily influenced by Haas driver Kevin Magnussen, who worked to back up the pack to help his team-mate, Nico Hulkenberg, score what could be a crucial world championship point for the unfancied American operation.
Were it not for Magnussen slowing the pace, Tsunoda would have been much further ahead of Ricciardo at the chequered flag.
The weekend in Saudi wasn’t a good one for Ricciardo. He struggled for pace in qualifying and, worryingly, was clueless as to why he couldn’t improve as everyone else did. It left him 14th on the grid.
After the race he revealed the team had found some issues with his car. Rules prohibited the team from changing the car following qualifying, and so he carried those faults through the 50-lap encounter.
After arriving with optimism in Australia that the Melbourne event offered a fresh start given the relevations in Jeddah, it’s impossible to shy away from the uncomfortable facts.
Ricciardo has been out-paced by Tsunoda all weekend long and, in qualifying, that gap only widened.
It’s true, the Australian had a lap time deleted in Qualifying 1 that would have seen him progress, but even allowing for that, there were few positives from the session.
By his own admission he did not have the additional pace to progress to Qualifying 3 like Tsunoda did. But that’s not the greatest concern.
No, that is the fact that Ricciardo felt the car performed well; he was comfortable, he was confident, and he was (aside form the time) happy with the lap. In short, he has no explanation for his lack of pace.
Contrast that to McLaren where there was a clear explanation – the car didn’t suit him and required adjustment – and the story takes a dark turn.
And leads us to today’s Australian Grand Prix. It’s a critical race for Ricciardo, as much for his own confidence as the optics of his plight.
A third defeat in succession, and so early in the season, will leave the blood in the water, and the sharks are already circling.
Red Bull’s motorsport tsar, Dr Helmu Marko, ramped up the pressure since the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
“There’s a lot at stake this season for both Yuki and Daniel,” he wrote in a column for the Red Bull-aligned Speed Week publication.
“Yuki’s qualifying performance was very good and Ricciardo has to come up with something soon.”
Red Bull is notoriously cutthroat in dealing with underperforming drivers; Kiwi superstar Liam Lawson is impatiently waiting following a stunning five-race cameo in place of Ricciardo last year.
The Australian Grand Prix is critical to Ricciardo’s future in Formula 1, both long- and short-term.
