Daniel Ricciardo has shown off his post-surgery wound for the first time after an operation was performed to repair a broken bone in his left hand.
A fortnight ago, Ricciardo was involved in a crash in second practice for the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, turning into a barrier around the Turn 3 banking in order to avoid the stranded McLaren of fellow Australian Oscar Piastri after his own shunt moments earlier.
It was the third event of Ricciardo’s F1 comeback after being promoted from third driver with Red Bull to a race seat with AlphaTauri after the team axed Nyck de Vries just 10 races into his rookie campaign.
X-rays revealed Ricciardo had broken the metacarpal of the little finger of his left hand in several places, requiring surgery at a hospital in Barcelona that led to the insertion of four screws and a metal plate.
Two weeks on, and the 34-year-old has posted an image on Instagram that shows the extent of the operation, requiring 13 stitches to repair the incision that was made in his hand, along with a simple message that reads “Relatively unchanged”.
Ricciardo being who he is, the Instagram post also includes a short video of him miming the words to Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Drivers License’, with an additional image of him clearly having worked out at a gym.
Ricciardo has now missed the last two grands prix in the Netherlands and Italy, with Red Bull team principal Christian Horner indicating the eight-time grand prix winner will also miss the upcoming Singapore GP, and most likely Japan the week after.
It is anticipated Ricciardo will return to the cockpit of the AT04 for the Qatar GP from October 6-8.
In his absence, reserve driver Liam Lawson has so far performed admirably, bringing the car home in Zandvoort in difficult conditions, and after just one rain-hit practice session, with qualifying also affected by inclement weather.
In Monza, New Zealander Lawson qualified a superb 12th just behind team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, going on to finish 11th, missing out on a top-10 finish by 6.5secs.
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