David Coulthard has warned Daniel Ricciardo that should he decide to race in another series, he risks losing the “fairy dust” of being a former F1 driver.
Ricciardo was dropped by VCARB after the Singapore Grand Prix weekend when the team announced that Liam Lawson would replace him with immediate effect.
David Coulthard’s ‘just another driver’ warning for Daniel Ricciardo
The decision brought an end to his F1 career which spanned 14 years and included eight Grand Prix wins, 32 podiums and three pole positions.
The big question now is what comes next for the Honey Badger?
Ricciardo has already ruled out taking on a reserve driver role in Formula 1 while IndyCar is also out of the question as he says that “scares” him.
It has been suggested he could head over to America’s NASCAR series as Ricciardo ran the number ‘3’ in Formula 1 in tribute to NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt. Joining McLaren in 2021, Ricciardo had a deal with CEO Zak Brown that saw him take Earnhardt’s 1984 No. 3 Wrangler Chevrolet Monte Carlo for a spin at Circuit of The Americas after he secured his first podium with the Woking team.
For now, Ricciardo is undecided as to whether he even wants to try his hand at another series.
Speaking prior to the VCARB announcement, the 35-year-old said: “No disrespect to other series — I’m a fan of NASCAR and a lot of other forms of motorsport — but because I’ve been here and experienced the highest of highs, will I get true fulfillment doing something else?
“No guarantee I’ll be awesome doing something else. Is that actually going to scratch the itch and give me what I want? I don’t know. I’d probably say more no than yes.”
What’s next for Daniel Ricciardo after his VCARB exit?
And ‘no’ would be the right answer, at least according to Coulthard who feels the risks of coming up short in another series outweigh the rewards.
“I guess the world is his lobster as they would say in Scotland, or oyster as I suspect they say down south,” the Scot told the Formula For Success podcast.
“So there’ll be a lot of opportunities there, and it’ll be interesting to see whether he looks to continue within another form of racing.
“The risk in that is unless you go in and dominate, which you know the chances of doing that are pretty slim, you just become another driver, and you kind of lose the fairy dust of being an ex-Grand Prix driver.
“So I definitely see him being an asset, whether he’d want to be, but he could definitely be an asset from a media point of view. You know, working in media and all those commercial opportunities, but he may have other plans.”
Whatever those plans out, Ricciardo says he doesn’t fear life outside of Formula 1 as he already had a taste of that when he left McLaren at the end of the 2022 season.
“Oh, outside racing, yeah [there’s fulfilling interests],” he said. “Because I’ve already experienced a bit of it, I don’t have a fear of not swiping into the paddock.
“I’ve loved it and it is great, but I’ve also fortunately made friends with other athletes over the years that have been in a similar position. What does kind of phase two of life look like?
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