What hurts Daniel Ricciardo most about his current situation, as he faces the threat of being axed, is that his return has always been “against the run of play”.
That is the opinion of leading F1 correspondent Lawrence Barretto, who reflected on “one of the toughest interviews I’ve ever done” as he spoke to an emotional Ricciardo post-race in Singapore, and also analysed what he sees as a sudden U-turn on their Ricciardo stance from Red Bull.
Daniel Ricciardo lacked ‘rub of the green’ in F1 return
Ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix, speculation emerged that this could be Ricciardo’s final race with Red Bull junior team VCARB and perhaps in Formula 1 entirely, a Q1 exit and P18 finish doing little to change the narrative, even if he did snatch the fastest lap from Max Verstappen’s title rival Lando Norris.
And after the race – Ricciardo having spent an extended period of time sat in the VCARB cockpit – the Aussie headed to the media pen for what proved to be an emotional interview for Ricciardo and Barretto.
“It was certainly one of the toughest interviews I think I’ve ever done,” Barretto reflected on the F1 Nation podcast.
“Because I think with Daniel, he is always, at least with me, has always been very opus and honest and genuine when he gives answers. So I think I was asking very open questions, but I think when he was giving the answers, he was really being thoughtful about what he was saying.
“And there’s been so much pressure on him in the build-up to this weekend. There was the speculation before he’d even stepped foot in Singapore, that he was going to lose his seat after this Grand Prix.
“He had every journalist asking him about it. Then he had that up day on Friday, when he was so strong in practice, to the day on qualifying, when it all went wrong. Kind of the story of his return really, isn’t it, to Formula 1.
“And so when he came to me in the pen, and I’d seen that he’d sat in the car after the race, and he doesn’t normally do it for very long and obviously really hot in there, so you want to get out as soon as possible, but he was in there for ages. So I asked him, just simply, you know, ‘Why? Why did you stay in the car?’ And obviously that opened some floodgates.”
After podcast host Tom Clarkson had claimed “I think he knows something” in response to Ricciardo’s actions and emotions, Barretto continued: “I think coming into the weekend, because we’re so used to seeing him smiling and bubbly and bouncy, even on the difficult days, and to see him not like that, to see him troubled, I guess, is a good way to describe it, and to see him like that through this weekend, and then see him react like that in that interview, it’s difficult to see how he hasn’t been given some sort of bad news, or enough news that makes him think that is the end.
“I think the question now, honestly, is whether or not he gets the rest of the season and then Liam Lawson takes over next year, or he has to give up his car immediately.
“But you know, I’m just doing body language here, and you take that interview, you take the time he sat in the car, you take the way that he had this applause when he walked into the hospitality unit today after he had done his final interview, the way he’s hugging people. People are making an effort to go and hug him, like people who are significant in his career. It’s kind of trending towards that.
“But honestly, I don’t know for certain, but it’s trending towards that.”
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Ricciardo – if this was to be the end of his F1 career – claimed he was at “peace” in the sense of having questioned what reason he had to remain if his dream return to Red Bull was off?
But, Barretto believes luck was never on Ricciardo’s side and that will be the most bitter pill to swallow if he bows out here.
“What I think hurts him the most is that it feels like always he’s been up against it, and it’s always been against the run of play,” said Barretto.
“Obviously he broke his hand in Zandvoort last year, so he barely got started, then missed a load of races, and the guy who’s potentially going to replace him [Liam Lawson] was the guy who did such a great job.
“Then he started this year when the car, for whatever reason, wasn’t at his comfort levels, but was competitive. Yuki [Tsunoda] scooped up a load of points. Then all of those moments where he turned it around, the car’s gone the other way, and then he’s going and getting 11ths, 12ths, which are good, solid performances, but they’re not points. They don’t seem impressive.
“So I think it’s just unfortunate that his form has turned around at a time when the car hasn’t been up there.
“Even today. Look, Yuki didn’t score points, did he? So you could argue that the car still wasn’t capable of scoring today, and he’s just done the best of what he could do from where he was starting.
“So I think he just hasn’t had the rub of the green, really, but that, you know, many drivers in Formula 1 are going to leave their careers and say that, but I think that’s possibly what’s going to take him the longest to get over. That I don’t think he’s going to feel like he ever had the right circumstances to do that.”
It has been quite the rollercoaster season for Ricciardo, who had been linked with a return to the main Red Bull team before this talk of his departure.
And Barretto worries Ricciardo will feel “unfulfilled” having not got another shot in the Red Bull team which he left in 2018.
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