The music is still playing in Formula One’s annual musical chairs game, but when it does, it appears that fan favorite Daniel Ricciardo will be left without a seat.
Ricciardo is unlikely to fill any of the three glaring positions in the 2023 Formula One driver lineup. Unless something unforeseen happens, he appears to be out of F1 in 2023. And if that happens, we’ll probably never see him drive again in the series.
Ricciardo even sounds like he’s coming to terms with his predicament.
“I’ve obviously acknowledged that if I’m not on the grid next year, I’m fine with that,” Ricciardo told Fox Sports following the Italian Grand Prix. “I’ve accepted that I won’t do everything, or that my [management] team won’t do everything, just to put me on the grid if it’s not right or makes sense.”
Later, Ricciardo added, “I don’t want to just jump into a car for the sake of it.” And, while he hasn’t given up, he appears to be on the verge of doing so.
“We haven’t given up hope on [grabbing a spot],” Ricciardo remarked. “But that’s kind of where my mind is right now.”
Ricciardo’s greatest chance of returning to the grid next season appears to be a reunion with Alpine, which is losing Fernando Alonso to Aston Martin and has seen his logical replacement, youngster Oscar Piastri, grab Ricciardo’s seat at McLaren.
Alpine (formerly Renault) seemed to like the idea at first, but in the past few weeks, it has been focusing on something else.
Pierre Gasly was the first. According to The Race’s Mark Hughes and Scott Mitchell-Malm, Alpine agreed to buy out the final year of Gasly’s contract with AlphaTauri, allowing him to join the French team. However, that plan was predicated on the FIA allowing American Colton Herta a Super License exemption, which, according to Will Buxton of F1TV, is now improbable.
If Alpine does not land Gasly, it appears the team will turn to Jack Doohan, an Australian F2 driver and Alpine junior driver. Buxton named him the “frontrunner,” despite the fact that it was a year sooner than the team would have desired.
That leaves just Williams and Haas with open seats. Both teams are at or near the end of the grid, which could be what Ricciardo meant when he said he wasn’t taking a car just to have a car. In any case, both teams appear to be looking elsewhere.
While Haas team manager Guenther Steiner has stated that any driver with a Super License is under consideration, recent rumours have suggested that Antonio Giovinazzi or Nico Hulkenberg might replace Mick Schumacher. Buxton just named Giovinazzi the favorite, while ESPN recently named Hulkenberg the “leading candidate.”
According to Nate Saunders of ESPN, Williams was one of the teams that approached Daniel Ricciardo about next season early on. They now look to be focusing on either Nyck de Vries, who wowed everyone in Italy when he filled in for Alex Albon, or Logan Sargeant, an American who is third in the F2 standings and a member of the Williams Driver Academy.
One theory going around the F1 garages is that Ricciardo will join Mercedes as a reserve driver with the goal of replacing Lewis Hamilton if he retires after the 2024 season.
Buxton believes the reserve status may be kept until 2024. If accurate, Ricciardo would be at home in 2023 and on the sidelines in 2024, giving him two years off the grid. Ricciardo would be 36 years old at the time, considerably past his peak.
“I’ve realized that I’m definitely in the second phase of my career,” Ricciardo told Insider. I’ve been in F1 for ten and eleven years, and I don’t think I’ll do another ten and eleven. So I’m definitely over the hill in that regard.
Jolyon Palmer, a former F1 driver and commentator, believes Ricciardo’s career will be done if he takes a two-year break.
“If Ricciardo spends a year on the beach next year and then a year as a reserve driver, he will not participate in Formula One again,” Palmer stated at the Italian Grand Prix. “Unless some random super-sub shows up and he happens to be there with his helmet, I’m going to say he has no chance of returning to legitimate, full-time Formula One.”