Daniel Ricciardo: F1 Career, Teams, and What’s Next (2025 Guide)

Full name: Daniel Ricciardo ·
Date of birth: July 1, 1989 ·
Nationality: Australian ·
F1 wins: 8 ·
Last team: Visa Cash App RB (2024)

Ten rows, one pattern: the Red Bull years carry every meaningful number, and everything after them carries an asterisk.

Which teams has Daniel Ricciardo raced for?

Five teams, two junior programs, one family brand: Ricciardo’s career is a tour of every way into F1 — and every way out.

Early career: HRT and Toro Rosso

• 2011: F1 debut at the British Grand Prix with HRT, the sport’s smallest team
• 2012-2013: full-time seat at Toro Rosso, Red Bull’s junior sister team

Ricciardo’s route to F1 ran through Red Bull’s young-driver program. He was a reserve in 2011, made his race debut with the backmarker HRT team at the British Grand Prix, then graduated to a permanent Toro Rosso seat the following season (Honda Global’s driver bio).

At Toro Rosso he did what Red Bull wanted: beat his teammate, stay calm, and wait for the call. The call came for 2014.

Prime years at Red Bull Racing (2014-2018)

• 2014-2018: five seasons with Red Bull Racing
• Best championship results: 3rd in 2014 and 2016

Red Bull’s promotion made Ricciardo an instant winner. He finished third in the championship in 2014 and 2016 (Encyclopaedia Britannica’s biography), and the race wins stacked up quickly.

His first season at Red Bull included wins in Canada, Hungary and Belgium — the start of a run that made him F1’s most marketable driver. The car suited his signature late-braking style, and he seemed to be enjoying himself more than anyone else on the grid.

The McLaren chapter (2021-2022)

• 2021-2022: two seasons at McLaren

McLaren signed him for the 2021 season (McLaren Racing’s heritage archive), pairing him with Lando Norris.

It never clicked. His two McLaren years produced a single win, at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix — a result credited to him by the Formula One History archive — and by the end of 2022 the team ended the partnership (McLaren Racing’s official history).

Return to the Red Bull family (2023-2024)

• 2023: reserve driver for Red Bull, then AlphaTauri from the Hungarian Grand Prix
• 2024: full season with the rebranded Visa Cash App RB team

The route back ran through the Red Bull factory. He spent early 2023 as the team’s reserve driver, then took AlphaTauri’s race seat when the team let Nyck de Vries go — a move reconstructed in detail in the next section.

He stayed with the team through 2024, when it was renamed Visa Cash App RB.

The pattern is blunt: Ricciardo’s numbers spiked at Red Bull and sagged everywhere else. That gap defines the rest of his story.

Did Daniel Ricciardo return to Formula 1?

Why he left the grid in 2022

McLaren had signed Ricciardo with a champion’s expectations. Instead, the team and driver spent two seasons chasing a setup that never came — and by the end of 2022, the experiment was over.

For the first time since 2011, he faced a season with no race seat at all.

The reserve year and the mid-2023 return

• 2023: third driver for Red Bull — simulator work, media duties, no racing
• July 2023: promoted to AlphaTauri after Nyck de Vries’s exit

Red Bull handed him a reserve contract for 2023 (Formula 1’s official report). The role was unglamorous: test sessions, simulator laps, and a presence at every race in case a seat opened up.

One did. AlphaTauri dropped Nyck de Vries, and Ricciardo took over from the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix (Formula 1’s official report).

A full season with RB in 2024

• 2024: full-time seat with the renamed Visa Cash App RB team — his final full F1 season (RacingNews365’s driver page)

The 2024 season was an audition and a farewell at the same time. Ricciardo got through the year without a podium, and RB finished the season without a clear reason to keep him. He was replaced before the season even ended — after the Singapore Grand Prix — with Liam Lawson taking his car for the final races.

The return worked, right up to the point that mattered: Ricciardo proved he could still do the job, but no top team offered him a 2025 seat.

Why did Daniel Ricciardo’s career end?

The performance decline

• Only one win after 2018 — at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix
• No podiums in his final two seasons

The decline was measurable before it was visible. After his Red Bull peak, he went four seasons with a single victory — a record that turned contract negotiations into arithmetic.

In F1, the results are the explanation. There was no dramatic cause, just a slow drift away from the front of the grid.

Team dynamics and the Red Bull squeeze

The end arrived at the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix, where RB replaced Ricciardo with Liam Lawson — the move documented in the snapshot above.

Red Bull’s young-driver pipeline had produced another option, and with Ricciardo’s results flat, the team took it.

The generational shift

• Liam Lawson took the RB seat for 2025
• Oscar Piastri had already taken the McLaren seat Ricciardo left in 2022

Ricciardo didn’t lose his seat to a single driver. He lost it to a generation. Piastri replaced him at McLaren; Lawson replaced him at RB. Both were younger, cheaper and entirely unproven at the time — which was precisely the point.

What ended Ricciardo’s career wasn’t one bad season. It was F1’s two-year cycle, where teams always prefer a fresh option to a familiar one.

Did Ricciardo regret leaving Red Bull?

The decision to leave

• Left Red Bull for Renault after the 2018 season
• Chose the move himself, saying he wanted a new challenge

Ricciardo’s exit from Red Bull was his own call. He signed with Renault (Honda Global’s driver bio), turning down the security of a top-team contract for the gamble of building something from a lower slot on the grid.

The logic was simple on paper: Renault paid well, and the team promised to build around him. Red Bull, meanwhile, was becoming Max Verstappen’s team.

What happened instead

• Two seasons at Renault with no wins
• Two seasons at McLaren with one win and an early exit

The move cost him his prime. Renault’s car never matched its ambition, and McLaren’s never matched its driver.

By the time his McLaren contract ended, he was 33, without a seat, and watching the grid move on.

Ricciardo’s own words

• “I don’t know if it was the wrong decision, but I definitely look back and think about it” — Ricciardo, on leaving Red Bull

Ricciardo has never called the move a mistake. In interviews, he has said he needed the change, that he doesn’t regret trying, and that he doesn’t dwell on alternate timelines. The word he keeps coming back to is “what if” — which tells you everything about how he processes the last half-decade.

The distinction matters: he doesn’t regret leaving, he regrets how it turned out. That’s a different, and more honest, position.

What is Daniel Ricciardo doing now?

Life after full-time racing

• No full-time F1 seat for 2025
• No retirement announcement, as of early 2025

Ricciardo enters 2025 without a race seat — the status recorded in the snapshot above. He has not confirmed retirement, and he has not closed the door on racing.

“It’s been a wild ride, and I’m still processing it,” he said as the 2024 season wound down.

Reserve driver or ambassador?

Reports suggest he is weighing a reserve role at Red Bull or another team. The commercial side is intact: he remains one of F1’s most recognizable figures, and media and brand work keep his name in rotation.

For a compact stats reference, our Daniel Ricciardo career tracker covers wins, last podium and current status.

2026 and beyond

• Possible paths: reserve role, another racing series, or media work
• No concrete plan announced beyond 2025

Insiders say a further comeback cannot be ruled out if a competitive seat appears. The 2026 rules reset is expected to reshuffle the grid, and teams may value his experience in the garage or in the car. For now, the answer to “is Daniel Ricciardo done with F1?” is the same as it was in early 2023: he doesn’t have a seat, but he hasn’t said goodbye.

The difference from 2023 is time. A mid-season comeback was plausible then; a 2026 return would require a team willing to gamble on a 36-year-old — and those teams are rare.

Ricciardo’s career timeline

Seven milestones, one pattern: the highs all came at Red Bull; the lows all came after leaving it.

The marker to watch: Ricciardo’s final full season produced no podium, no pole, and no path back to a top team. That’s not a slump — it’s a closing door.

What’s confirmed, what’s still open

The picture that emerges is of a driver whose numbers are settled but whose narrative remains unfinished.

Ricciardo and Verstappen, in their own words

Three quotes capture the arc: the uncertainty about his biggest decision, the friendship that lasted past it, and the lightness he kept through all of it.

“I don’t know if it was the wrong decision, but I definitely look back and think about it.”

Daniel Ricciardo, on leaving Red Bull

“We still get along, we were teammates and friends.”

Max Verstappen, on Ricciardo

“It’s been a wild ride, and I’m still processing it.”

Daniel Ricciardo, on his career

The quotes capture why Ricciardo remains a figure of interest: he owns his choices, keeps his friendships, and faces his career shift with candor.

Where Ricciardo goes from here

Ricciardo’s career is a case study in how quickly F1 rewards talent and then moves past it. He won eight races, became the sport’s most recognizable smile, lost his edge, found a way back onto the grid, and was swapped out for a younger driver when the numbers stopped adding up.

For his fans, the practical takeaway is simple: don’t wait for a trophy finale. For Ricciardo himself, the choice is clear — take a role that keeps him near a cockpit, or start writing the next chapter on his own terms.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading

• Daniel Ricciardo: Career, Wins, Last Podium & 2025 Status
• Daniel Ricciardo: F1 Career, Departure, and Comeback Chances