Few drivers leave Formula 1 with their reputation intact, let alone improved — Daniel Ricciardo is the exception. His final Grand Prix was in 2024, and the year since has been less about mourning a career than about finding an identity beyond it: hiking, building the Enchanté lifestyle brand he founded in January 2023 (Ricciardo’s LinkedIn (verified profile)), and taking on a global ambassador role with Ford — here’s what’s confirmed, what’s still unclear, and why his F1 exit was never as simple as a retirement announcement.
F1 Wins: 8 · Podiums: 32 · Race Starts: 257 · Pole Positions: 3 · Nickname: Honey Badger · Final Race: 2024 Singapore GP
Quick snapshot
- Final F1 race: 2024 Singapore Grand Prix, after which Liam Lawson took his seat (PlanetF1 (F1 news outlet))
- Founded Enchanté, a standalone lifestyle brand (EveningLedger)
- Formally confirmed his racing days were behind him with the September 2025 Ford announcement (EveningLedger)
- Exact net worth — no verified public figure exists (EveningLedger)
- Whether any form of competitive comeback remains possible after his 2025 retirement confirmation (EveningLedger)
- The long-term scale of Enchanté as a standalone business (EveningLedger)
- January 2023 — Enchanté founded as a standalone lifestyle brand (EveningLedger)
- May 2025 — Enchanté partnered with VCARB’s F1 Academy programme (SB Nation (sports outlet))
- September 2025 — Ford Racing global ambassador role announced (EveningLedger)
- Scaling Enchanté’s presence, including a Melbourne activation around the 2025 Australian Grand Prix (Man of Many (lifestyle magazine))
- Building on the Ford Racing ambassadorship announced in September 2025 (Man of Many (lifestyle magazine))
- No confirmed race seat or full-time commentary role on the horizon (Man of Many (lifestyle magazine))
Seven lines of bio, one pattern: Ricciardo’s numbers put him in F1’s solid second tier — and his personality made him a headliner anyway.
| Full Name | Daniel Joseph Ricciardo |
| Born | July 1, 1989 · Perth, Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| F1 Teams | HRT, Toro Rosso, Red Bull, McLaren, VCARB |
| F1 Wins | 8 |
| Podiums | 32 |
| Nickname | Honey Badger |
What has happened to Daniel Ricciardo?
Ricciardo’s final F1 race, as the stats above show, was the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix. RB replaced him with Liam Lawson for the season’s remaining rounds, which is why Ricciardo wasn’t in the car for the Abu Dhabi finale. What made the exit unusual was the silence that followed: PlanetF1 noted that Ricciardo did not immediately issue a formal motorsport-retirement announcement after losing his seat (PlanetF1 (F1 news outlet)).
A final season that ended early
- Returned to the grid with AlphaTauri in late 2023, then raced for the rebranded VCARB through 2024
- Won one race after leaving Red Bull — the 2021 Italian Grand Prix with McLaren — but never landed another top-team seat
- Made his final start at the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix before Liam Lawson took over
A retirement announcement, one year late
Ricciardo’s exit looked like a driver-market decision in September 2024, not a farewell — and it took 12 months and a Ford contract for one of F1’s best-known faces to actually say he was done.
The gap between those moments turned a routine driver-market decision into a year of will-he-won’t-he speculation. By the time Ricciardo surfaced with Ford in September 2025, the news cycle had already answered the question: his racing days were behind him, even if his schedule wasn’t.
The pattern: Ricciardo didn’t announce a retirement so much as let the absence speak — and then gave the ending a positive twist by announcing a new job instead.
What is Daniel Ricciardo doing now?
The short answer: he’s building Enchanté. Ricciardo has described the label as a creative outlet alongside racing rather than a conventional motorsport merchandise operation, with a design direction that reflects his personality and interests outside racing — as he put it in an interview with Man of Many.
Enchanté, the brand
- Sells lifestyle apparel with a design language that deliberately avoids race-team branding
- Expanded through partnerships such as the Enchanté × VCARB F1 Academy tie-up announced in May 2025
- Kept its founder in front of fans via Instagram and X, not just press releases
Athlete lifestyle brands sell fastest while the athlete is still front-page news. The challenge for Enchanté is surviving a decade after the podiums stop — and the Melbourne and F1 Academy moves suggest Ricciardo knows it.
What this means: Ricciardo is treating retirement as a career change, not a gap year — and the Enchanté build-out is the proof.
Why did Daniel Ricciardo leave F1?
The exit had two layers. The first was performance: McLaren let him go after 2022 following a run of inconsistent results, and a return to Red Bull’s senior team never materialised. The second was timing: by the time VCARB had to settle its 2025 line-up, no top seat had opened up for a 35-year-old with a growing list of business interests.
The McLaren exit
- Parted ways with McLaren after 2022 amid inconsistent results
- Spent 2023 as Red Bull’s reserve driver before returning to the grid
- Replaced by Liam Lawson after the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix
The Red Bull safety net
Returning to Red Bull as a reserve kept Ricciardo in the paddock and in the conversation — but it also made the next failure to land a race seat harder to spin as anything other than the end of a chapter.
He spent 2023 as Red Bull’s reserve driver, then accepted an early return to the grid when AlphaTauri, now VCARB, needed a proven hand. The 2024 season was meant to audition him for a 2025 seat; instead, it ended at Singapore.
The VCARB comeback
- Returned to racing with AlphaTauri in late 2023
- Raced for the rebranded VCARB through the 2024 season
- Replaced by Liam Lawson after the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix
The honest summary is plainer than any press release: no top-team seat opened, and Ricciardo’s own comments pointed to a desire to pursue other interests. For a full breakdown of the McLaren years and the statistics behind his exit, read our separate review — Daniel Ricciardo F1 Career: Wins, McLaren Exit, Legacy.
Is Daniel Ricciardo coming back to racing?
By late 2025, Ricciardo himself had answered that question. When he announced his global ambassador role with Ford in September 2025, PlanetF1 reported that the announcement doubled as confirmation that his racing days were behind him (PlanetF1 (F1 news outlet)). There is no confirmed race seat anywhere on the calendar, and the Ford role now anchors his motorsport commitments.
- F1 comeback: effectively ruled out by his own September 2025 statement
- Endurance or other series: he had said he was open to other categories; the September 2025 confirmation has since taken precedence
- One-off appearances: not confirmed, not denied
Anyone waiting for a Ricciardo return after September 2025 is betting against the driver’s own words: he confirmed his racing days were behind him while introducing the Ford role.
If you’re tracking the financial side of his second act, our profile — Daniel Ricciardo: Career, Retirement, Net Worth & 2025 Update — pulls together the earnings picture and what changed in 2025.
The implication: the Ford announcement wasn’t a sponsorship sideline — it was the retirement statement that never came in 2024.
Is Max Verstappen still friends with Daniel Ricciardo?
Yes — and it’s one of the few high-profile F1 friendships that survived a teammate breakup intact.
- They were Red Bull teammates during Ricciardo’s strongest years at the team
- Verstappen has publicly praised Ricciardo’s career and character
- Both still interact at events and on social media
The friendship matters because it outlasted the awkward part: Ricciardo left, Verstappen stayed and kept winning.
Why this matters: in a paddock where former teammates often go cold, the Ricciardo–Verstappen friendship kept Ricciardo connected to the sport’s centre of gravity — even when he no longer had a seat at the table.
Daniel Ricciardo career timeline
Seven moments, one signal: a career that kept restarting until it stopped — and then took a full year to formally end.
| Date or period | Event |
|---|---|
| 2011 | F1 debut with HRT |
| 2014–2018 | Red Bull Racing: seven race wins |
| 2021–2022 | McLaren: one win, at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix |
| January 2023 | Enchanté founded as a standalone lifestyle brand |
| 2023 | Red Bull reserve driver, then back on the grid with AlphaTauri/VCARB |
| September 2024 | Final F1 race at the Singapore Grand Prix |
| September 2025 | Ford Racing global ambassador role announced |
The signal: Ricciardo’s career had three distinct acts — Red Bull contender, McLaren reset, VCARB farewell — and the last act took a year longer to conclude than the seat change that triggered it.
Confirmed facts and what’s still unclear
The confirmed side of Ricciardo’s story is a closed book; the unclear side is where the next headline will come from.
Confirmed facts
- Ricciardo retired from F1 after the 2024 season; his final race was the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix (EveningLedger)
- He has 8 Grand Prix wins, 32 podiums and 257 race starts (EveningLedger)
- He founded the Enchanté lifestyle brand (EveningLedger)
- He and Max Verstappen remain on good terms (EveningLedger)
What’s unclear
- Whether any form of competitive racing — including one-off appearances — is truly off the table (EveningLedger)
- Exact net worth figures; no verified public accounting exists (EveningLedger)
- How large Enchanté can grow as a standalone business (EveningLedger)
- How the September 2025 retirement confirmation squares with his earlier openness to endurance-racing cameos (EveningLedger)
The balance: the record of Ricciardo’s career is settled enough to be encyclopedic; the record of his future is a list of open questions — and a brand trying to write the answers.
What Ricciardo and Verstappen have said
Who was Daniel Ricciardo when he wasn’t a race-car driver? That was the question, he told Formula1.com in 2025, at the centre of his first year off the grid.
Daniel Ricciardo, interview with Formula1.com (official F1 site)
On Enchanté, Ricciardo’s description never wavered: the brand is a creative outlet that happens to sell T-shirts, not a piece of conventional motorsport merchandise.
Daniel Ricciardo, interview with Man of Many (lifestyle magazine)
Max Verstappen has spoken warmly about Ricciardo’s career and their friendship since they stopped being Red Bull teammates.
Max Verstappen, public interviews and social media
Why this matters: Ricciardo’s public language has shifted from defending race seats to explaining identity — and that shift is exactly what Ford and Enchanté are built on.
Ricciardo has treated the end of his F1 career as a starting gun rather than a finish line. The Ford ambassadorship gives him a formal place in the motorsport industry, Enchanté gives him a product to build, and the Verstappen friendship keeps him linked to the sport’s top table. For Australian motorsport fans, the choice is clear: follow the brand and the Ford programme, or keep waiting for a comeback that Ricciardo himself has already closed the door on.
Frequently asked questions
What is Daniel Ricciardo’s net worth?
No verified public figure exists. Ricciardo earned top-tier salaries across more than a decade in F1, but his exact net worth has never been officially confirmed; the clearest current signals are the Enchanté brand and his September 2025 Ford ambassadorship.
How tall is Daniel Ricciardo?
Ricciardo is 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) tall.
What is a shoey in F1?
A shoey is Ricciardo’s trademark podium celebration: after a strong result, he drinks from his own race boot. It became one of F1’s most recognisable post-race rituals during his Red Bull years.
Does Daniel Ricciardo have a girlfriend?
Ricciardo keeps his relationship status private, and no confirmed public answer exists.
What is the Enchanté brand?
Enchanté is the lifestyle brand Ricciardo founded in January 2023. It sells apparel and designs that he describes as a creative outlet rather than conventional motorsport merchandise.
How many F1 wins does Daniel Ricciardo have?
Ricciardo has eight Grand Prix wins — seven with Red Bull and one with McLaren at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.
What is Daniel Ricciardo’s nickname?
Honey Badger — a nickname that stuck because of his fearless, never-back-down racing style.
Related reading
Oliver Jack Carter Cooper is a staff writer for EveningLedger.uk, covering UK news, politics, business and culture. He works under Editor-in-Chief Edward Langley and Managing Editor Charlotte Reeves, following the newsroom standards for sourcing, verification and fact-checking set out in our editorial policies.