F1 News
The statistics and milestones which showcase Ricciardo's F1 rise and fall
Daniel Ricciardo has been forced out of Visa Cash App RB with six races remaining in the 2024 Formula 1 season. Seemingly, it also spells the end of his Formula 1 career. The Australian became one of the most popular drivers on the grid. His career had a rise and then a sudden fall. Here are the numbers which showcase that.
Ricciardo's F1 career statistics
The Singapore Grand Prix marked Ricciardo's 257th and final Grand Prix. That places him just inside the top ten on the all-time list. His career spanned 14 seasons, and he competed with seven different constructors. He secured eight wins in Formula 1, with his first being at the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix. He started that race from sixth on the grid. He secured three pole positions and 32 podiums. He got 17 fastest laps in his career, with the final one in Singapore creating a talking point.
His most successful circuit was Singapore. Ricciardo scored 89 points at the Marina Bay Street Circuit in 11 Grands Prix. He also scored 89 points in Monza, but that took him 13 Grands Prix to achieve. He was also very successful in Monaco, scoring 85 points and four podium finishes in 12 Grands Prix. Despite competing at Interlagos on 12 occasions, Ricciardo only scored 33 points there. In total, Ricciardo amassed 1,329 career points and led 340 laps.
The rise of Ricciardo
Ricciardo started out at HRT in 2011 before moving to Toro Rosso in 2012. He started his first Toro Rosso GP in 10th and finished 9th. Across the season, he lost out to his teammate Jean-Éric Vergne but he returned the favour one year later. He outscored him by 20 points to 13 in the Formula 1 World Championship. This earned him the promotion to Red Bull for the 2014 F1 season and he sat alongside World Champion Sebastian Vettel.
Ricciardo trounced his older, more experienced teammate in the first season. Ricciardo finished third in the World Championship, the best outside of the dominant Mercedes. He scored 71 points more than the reigning World Champion, Vettel, and looked set for a strong career.
Vettel moved to Ferrari, leaving Ricciardo to team up with Daniil Kvyat at Red Bull. Ricciardo just dropped behind Kvyat in the World Championship standings, but only by three points across a 19-race year in which the Austrian team struggled. Ricciardo had another new teammate (after Spain) in 2016. This was a young Max Verstappen. The Red Bull car was better in that season and the Australian beat the Dutchman in the World Championship. He also beat him in Verstappen's second seat.
The fall of Ricciardo
Ricciardo then started to struggle. As Verstappen matured, he started outpacing Ricciardo, and he decided to leave Red Bull after the 2018 season. In that year, Verstappen beat Ricciardo by nearly 80 points. That was despite Ricciardo getting two race wins in the first six races. Ricciardo leapt across to Renault for 2019.
He managed to beat Hulkenberg convincingly in 2019 and had a good showing in 2020 as well. Ricciardo finished fifth in the World Championship behind only Red Bull and Champions Mercedes. He nearly scored twice as many points as his teammate Esteban Ocon. But then the downward spiral really started. He jumped across to McLaren are partner up with another young teammate: Lando Norris. Despite winning a race that season, Ricciardo was beaten by the British driver in the World Championship. Norris scored him by 45 points, and things only got worse in 2022. Norris nearly beat him by 100 points, and McLaren decided enough was enough.
He left Formula 1 but then returned midway through the 2023 season at VCARB. In 2024, Yuki Tsunoda has nearly doubled Ricciardo's points tally.