Ricciardo was dropped by Red Bull following the F1 2024 Singapore Grand Prix weekend heralding the end of a career that netted eight race wins.
The latter years, however, were dominated by confusion amid a frustrating inability to consistently unlock the pace he’d shown when driving for Red Bull and, arguably, Renault.
His struggles coincided with the introduction of ground-effect regulations leading to suggestions that the popular Australian was unable to adapt to the nuances of F1’s newest designs.
Former Racing Bulls team principal Franz Tost holds that view, remarking as much at his final race with the team in Abu Dhabi at the end of F1 2023.
“I’m just actually thinking back to a conversation I had with Franz,” Peter Bayer, Racing Bulls CEO, told PlanetF1.
“Abu Dhabi, we brought, for the first time last year [2023], a new generation floor, which was really like going into the extreme of these ground-effect cars and we had the same floor on both cars.
“Yuki [Tsunoda] loved it. Daniel was struggling with it.
“Franz then actually said, ‘I’m curious to see whether Daniel can recover with this, whether this new type of car will suit him’.
“I think now, in hindsight, probably he was struggling with this generation of cars. They are just a different way of driving.
“I think, whilst the driver can always adapt, this year [2024] was so close – sometimes we’ve seen 20 cars within a second.”
With the F1 field as competitive as it’s ever been, minor differences are exaggerated in comparison to what would have once been the case.
By contrast, getting the car into the ideal set-up window can net returns, as Ricciardo himself experienced with fourth place in the Miami Sprint.
The problem was one of consistency as the Australian proved unable to deliver results at that standard week-in, week-out.
While Tsunoda also struggled to reach those heights, his bad weekends were better than his more illustrious team-mate’s.
Like had been the case as he began to flounder at McLaren, Ricciardo worked closely with engineers at Racing Bulls in an effort to turn the situation around but to no avail.
“I don’t know what it was and, if I did, I’m sure we’d have worked on it together and fixed it, and he doesn’t know what it was,” Alan Permane, who worked with Ricciardo at both Renault and Racing Bulls, told PlanetF1.
“There’s an inconsistency, or a struggling with the tyres, or whatever it is, I don’t know.
“But for Yuki to be able to take the same car and deliver reasonably consistently, I know it was very frustrating for Daniel.”
Throughout his public struggles, Ricciardo remained professional and, according to Permane, at not point turned on the team or engineers.
“We spent a lot of time pouring over data, and, certainly with his race engineers, he handled it incredibly professionally, just looking at himself the whole time,” he said.
“We would constantly, of course, make sure the car was performing as it should have been, but Daniel would spend time, with his engineers, just seeing how he could improve, and what he could do better.
“I know he was as frustrated as anyone to not be able to deliver.”
Like had been the case at McLaren, there was no clear answer or solution and the result was a performance delta to his team-mate that couldn’t be ignored.
With Liam Lawson waiting for an opportunity to showcase his abilities once more, it left Ricciardo in a vulnerable position.
Hence the decision was made to replace him, the Australian having never truly come to grips with the ground effect cars – be it a McLaren or a Racing Bulls – a point Tost noted with the introduction of a floor at the end of 2023.
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