Coulthard contradicts analysts: 'Ricciardo was allowed to do that'

In the end, the news did not come as a surprise. A few days after the Singapore Grand Prix, Visa Cash App RB announced that Daniel Ricciardo would be replaced by Liam Lawson for the rest of the current season. Some analysts and especially many fans on social media felt that this deprived Ricciardo of the opportunity to properly direct his own farewell. 

As Helmut Marko has since confirmed, Ricciardo already knew several Grand Prix weekends before Singapore that the Asian city-state would see his swan song as an F1 driver. "He had the opportunity obviously to make that public and he chose not to," Coulthard said on the Formula for Success podcast about a rumour he heard.

Media stunt by Ricciardo?

"And I know there's been a lot of reaction negatively, people going, why was he not given that opportunity? But I've heard that he was given that opportunity and chose not to. So I'm trying to kind of figure that out in my head, whether that's just a personal thing, didn't want to be distracted by that, or whether that's some sort of media masterstroke, which will just gain even more mileage when I imagine he will or should turn up in Austin and Vegas."

"Two great opportunities for him to get a lot of airtime and make it all about him, where maybe it would have been mixed into a Grand Prix weekend in Singapore," argued the former F1 driver. Ricciardo has not yet commented on his departure from F1 - apart from a post on Instagram - on this forced farewell.

This article has been created in collaboration with Matt Gretton