- Ricciardo admits exhaustion drove his F1 exit, calling his Red Bull axing a relief.
- Dropped twice in two years, the Australian says he had already sensed his decline.
- Now a Ford ambassador, Ricciardo finds peace in karting, fashion & life beyond F1.
Daniel Ricciardo has never struggled to say what he means. But what he said on Ford CEO Jim Farley’s podcast recently might have come as a surprise to many.
Months after his Formula 1 career ended, the eight-time grand prix winner said that Red Bull and Racing Bulls made the kindest decision possible by dropping him. He admitted that exhaustion kept him from making that decision himself.
The Australian retired from motor racing in September 2025, aged 36, several months after his final F1 start at the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix.
The admission that surprised many
Ricciardo lost his seat to Liam Lawson late in the 2024 season, ending a career that spanned 257 starts across 14 seasons. Yet there is no bitterness in his reflection.
“Ultimately, I got let go,” Ricciardo said. “That was the reality at the time. I think once that happened, I’d been let go twice in the last two years, and it had also taken a lot out of me. I’d put a lot of my soul into it. I was pretty exhausted by it.”
When he finally looked back at how his F1 career came to a close, he said he felt gratitude.
“In reflection, I was grateful that they made the decision for me,” he said. “I think it would have been hard to be like, ‘I’m done.'”
That kind of honesty is rare. Drivers of Ricciardo’s generation did not learn to speak publicly about their decline. The paddock rewarded confidence, not candour.
His willingness to sit with the truth of his own fading form, and say it plainly, reflects a maturity that only distance from the sport seems to have made possible.
He also acknowledged the limits of the support around him.
“There’s people that love you and will still tell you that you’re great and you can do it,” he said. “But as much as you love them as well, you need to just close the door and make that decision on your own and be really honest with yourself.”
Ricciardo’s turbulent final chapter in F1
The Aussie’s road to that Singapore exit was long and probably quite a bit difficult as well. McLaren released him at the end of 2022 to make way for Oscar Piastri.
A mid-2023 return with Red Bull’s junior team offered a second chance, but a broken hand and inconsistent form left him exposed. By the time Lawson finally took over in 2024, Ricciardo had already sensed it himself.
“I think I knew I was probably done because I knew it was harder for me to perform at the level I could,” he said. “For whatever reason, I lost a little bit of something, and it’s okay to admit it.”
His career began with HRT at the 2011 British Grand Prix. It ended 13 years later in Singapore. In between, he collected eight race wins, three pole positions, 17 fastest laps and 32 podiums.
Those numbers define a great career. But the sport does not treat greatness with sentiment once a driver loses the edge, and Ricciardo knew it.
The exhaustion behind the smile
For anyone who watched Ricciardo race, the grin was the signature. It was there after a wheel-to-wheel battle with Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull. It was there after his surprise victory at Monza with McLaren in 2021.
But behind it, through that final stretch, the grind of trying to reproduce former brilliance was quietly wearing him thin.
“If I would have got to the end of last year, I think I would have still had a lot of these thoughts,” he said. “I had to dig really deep to pull out a result that I was proud of.”
The 2024 season offered flashes of the old Ricciardo without the consistency that once made him a podium regular.
He used the time wisely, though. “Last year, my retirement year, I gave myself a lot of time to just reflect on my career and to be at peace with it,” he said.
The decision was made for him. The peace, he found himself.
What has Daniel Ricciardo been up to since retirement
Since stepping away, the Australian has stayed close to motorsport, just from a different angle. He has taken on a global ambassador role with Ford, which has partnered with Red Bull Powertrains to develop power units for the 2026 season.
Racing Bulls team principal Laurent Mekies described it as a “great feeling” to have Ricciardo back in the Red Bull family through that partnership, and suggested he could appear at several grands prix in 2026.
Ricciardo has already been active on the racing calendar in his new role, including getting behind the wheel of a Ford F-150 Raptor at the Raptor Rally.
Beyond Ford, he is developing his Enchanté fashion brand and running the Daniel Ricciardo Series karting initiative. Through that programme, he recently announced a Ginetta Junior Scholarship to identify two young drivers between the ages of 14 and 17 for a racing assessment.
His love for the sport and the joy he found in competing with the best drivers in the world make this project a fitting one for his career.
