Daniel Ricciardo claims returning to Red Bull has helped him fall in love again with F1 and also rediscover his more “normal” side.
After two bitterly disappointing seasons at McLaren, with the exception of his anomalous Italian Grand Prix victory at Monza in 2021, Ricciardo returned to Red Bull as a third driver after a four-year hiatus.
The 34-year-old Australian concedes it took a few months of integration for him to finally feel like his old self, and that over a period of time, the desire to again drive full-time has materialised.
Following a test at Silverstone last Tuesday in this year’s RB19, it was confirmed Ricciardo would join AlphaTauri on loan for the remainder of the season, replacing the sacked Nyck de Vries.
Insisting his time on the sidelines was “really good” for him, speaking in an interview with F1, Ricciardo added: “The more races I started to attend, the more sim I started to do, I was certainly getting the bug back, and then jumping in the car a few days ago, it all felt very normal.”
Assessing what being back at Red Bull has done for him over the past few months, Ricciardo said: “It has definitely helped. Falling out of love with it (F1) took a hit on my confidence.
“Of course, if you’re competing in a sport where you’re trying to be the best in the world at something, obviously you need full confidence, full belief, all of it.
“When that starts to diminish a little bit, I guess the enjoyment then starts to drop as well. So there were a lot of factors.
“Getting back to Red Bull, and the reception I had walking back into that team was, in a positive way, a little bit overwhelming.
“Then getting back on the sim, I was still a bit unsure as to how it would go, if the car would feel like it used to, and if I was going to be the old me.
“Once I’d done a few some sessions, and I started feeling like myself again, it then just kind of brought me back to normal Daniel, where I was falling back in love and ready to go again.”
Ricciardo claims it was in attending the Super Bowl in early February, being in a competitive environment, even if only as a fan, that began to stir old feelings.
“Having off time and switching off kind of mentally as well, allowed me to slowly fall back in love with it,” added Ricciardo.
“I really wanted to bring that inner motivation back. I wanted it to come from me because I was still trying to find out if it was what I truly still wanted to do, or had that fire slowly burned away.
“I gave myself the time, figured it all out. Then it’s like you wake up one day and that feeling where you’re like, ‘Alright, it’s go time’.
“That was the mentality after a couple of months off. It was ‘Alright, it’s time to build this thing back up’.
“And it was probably around the time I went to Super Bowl, that was certainly a moment where it all started to turn around.”
Beyond that, though, it was not until the Monaco Grand Prix towards the end of May that the blue touchpaper was lit.
“The first race I attended was Melbourne, and it was cool, home race and I was in a pretty awesome environment,” reflected Ricciardo.
“I was sitting on the pit wall, seeing all the drivers heading out of the pits, and I’d missed that feeling, but deep down, I was still kind of letting it build up.
“I wasn’t foaming at the mouth in Melbourne but it was building.
“Monaco, I was watching qualifying, and it was a great qualifying. It was a very exciting one. As a fan, that was cool.
“Monaco is so special, and that’s where I was really starting to get like ‘Being in a car around here would be really fun’.”
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