Daniel Ricciardo: Career, Wins, Net Worth, and 2026 Plans

Few drivers made overtaking look as joyful as Daniel Ricciardo, and fewer still left Formula One with their smile fully intact. When the Australian ended his F1 career at the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix, he closed the door on 257 starts and eight wins — then opened another as Ford Racing’s global ambassador in 2025.

F1 Wins: 8 ·
Age (2025): 36 ·
Nationality: Australian ·
Last F1 Team: RB (Visa Cash App RB) ·
Highest Annual Salary: $27M (Renault, 2020)

Seven facts, one pattern: the racing résumé is sealed, the new job is in motion.

What has happened to Daniel Ricciardo?

The short version: Ricciardo lost his seat, then reshaped his identity. Racing Bulls replaced him with Liam Lawson for the remainder of the 2024 season, ending a 14-season F1 story that had begun with HRT in 2011. He accepted the decision without a farewell tour, and by September 2025, Ford’s announcement gave him a new job title — global ambassador.

Why did Ricciardo leave F1?

The quiet months after Singapore ended on September 4, 2025, when Ford made the ambassador role official. He did not land another F1 seat for 2025, and the paddock chatter about a reserve role never became a contract.

The pattern: Ricciardo was dropped at the moment his results stopped matching his star power. The Ford relationship exists precisely because the visibility never faded — even when the race results did.

The implication: the exit and the new role are two sides of the same career shift — one chapter ended, another began.

How many F1 wins has Daniel Ricciardo had?

Eight, in 14 seasons — a number that matters less than the two races fans still replay. The best-known of the eight are the 2018 Monaco Grand Prix and the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, the latter his first win with McLaren.

List of Ricciardo’s Grand Prix wins

• 2018 — Monaco Grand Prix (Red Bull) (Yahoo Sports (sports news))
• 2021 — Italian Grand Prix (McLaren) (Yahoo Sports (sports news))

The other six wins came during his Red Bull years, which is why the 2018 split still reads as goodbye to his best machinery.

Podiums: 32 · Top-3 championship finishes: 3 (2014, 2016, 2018) · Best season: 3rd in the drivers’ championship

The implication: Ricciardo’s win count is modest by champion standards, but his victories cluster at venues where bravery and late braking decide the day — Monaco and Monza are exactly that kind of track.

Did Daniel Ricciardo come from a wealthy family?

Not by the standard of the F1 paddock. Ricciardo grew up in Perth, Western Australia, where his father, Joe Ricciardo, owned a business. The family was comfortable, but not among the wealthiest families in Formula One — a distinction that matters in a sport built on sponsorship and privilege.

Ricciardo’s upbringing in Perth

• Born July 1, 1989, in Perth, Australia (Yahoo Sports (sports news))
• Started karting at age 9
• Father Joe Ricciardo was a businessman; family finances were comfortable, not elite

What this means: Ricciardo’s rise was an old-school merit story. He reached F1 because he kept winning at each level — and the lack of family money made him, perhaps, the most relatable front-runner of his generation.

Did Ricciardo regret leaving Red Bull?

The honest answer sits somewhere between the team line and his own words. Ricciardo left Red Bull after the 2018 season to join Renault — a decision that reshaped the rest of his F1 career. The results never matched what he had left behind.

Why he left Red Bull

• 2018 — left Red Bull for Renault (Yahoo Sports (sports news))
• 2019 to 2020 — two seasons at Renault
• 2021 — joined McLaren and won the Italian Grand Prix (Yahoo Sports (sports news))
• 2023 — returned to the Red Bull family via AlphaTauri (RB) (Yahoo Sports (sports news))

The 2023 return to the Red Bull family looked like a reset; it ended with the 2024 driver change he could not survive. The shape of that detour — leave the dominant team, look for a new lead role, circle back — has parallels in other sports, as we saw with Ansu Fati’s career progression and future prospects.

Why this matters: the Red Bull era defined Ricciardo’s statistics and his reputation. The post-Red Bull years defined the hard part — proving he could win anywhere else, which he only managed once more.

What is Daniel Ricciardo doing in 2026?

Ricciardo’s 2026 calendar reads like a launch plan, not a race schedule. As Ford Racing’s global ambassador, he is the public face of a brand push built around the Raptor family — and the early events have been deliberately physical, not ceremonial. One of his first public stops was Ford’s Raptor Rally, a gathering built around the trucks he now represents.

Ford Racing ambassadorship

• Core focus: the Raptor brand and lifestyle — the assignment Ford defined when it announced the deal
• Involvement with the Ford Raptor T1+ off-road program (Motorsport.com AU (motorsport specialist))
• Public appearances linked to Ford performance vehicles and race weekends

Public appearances and events

• 2026 US Grand Prix: Ford Racing and Enchanté co-host a pop-up in Austin (GPFans (F1 outlet))
• Road trip from Lake Havasu, Arizona, to Austin, Texas
• Continued media and brand appearances through the F1 season

The trade-off: a racing career that ended in 2024 has been reborn as a traveling lifestyle show. For Ford, that means a celebrity who can actually drive the product; for Ricciardo, it means paddock access without the pressure of qualifying.

Daniel Ricciardo career timeline

Eight markers, one arc: from a debut in a backmarker to a podium regular, then a Ford ambassador — with a Red Bull detour at the heart of it.

The pattern: his peaks cluster around Red Bull and a single McLaren afternoon in 2021; the valleys are the years in between.

What’s confirmed and what’s still unclear

Confirmed facts

• Ricciardo left F1 after the 2024 season (Yahoo Sports (sports news))
• He won 8 Grands Prix and finished on the podium 32 times (Yahoo Sports (sports news))
• Ford announced him as Global Ford Racing Ambassador on September 4, 2025 (Ford Racing (official announcement))
• He participated in Ford’s Raptor Rally events (Ford Racing (official coverage))

What’s unclear

• His exact net worth in 2025 — no official figure has been published
• Whether he will ever race again in any series
• How long the Ford ambassadorship contract runs
• The precise scale of his family’s wealth

What this means: the public record is solid on the career facts; the private finances and the comeback question are where speculation still has room.

Quotes that frame the transition

Three statements capture the shift better than any highlights package.

He had probably finished with F1, and he had lost some of what he previously had competitively.

Daniel Ricciardo, on his F1 exit (Yahoo Sports)

His new ambassador role, he said, was a completely fresh start.

Daniel Ricciardo, via Ford Racing

Ricciardo arrived at the Raptor Rally after an 18-hour drive in a new Raptor.

Ford Racing, Raptor Rally report

The pattern: two of the three statements are about leaving; the third is about arriving. Ricciardo’s public voice has always been warmer on the future than the past.

Ricciardo’s career now plays to two audiences: F1 fans remember the late-braking passes and the Monaco win, while a different crowd is meeting him through Ford’s Raptor rallies and the 2026 US Grand Prix pop-ups. For Ford, the choice is clear — make Ricciardo the face of the Raptor lifestyle, because his 18-hour-drive authenticity sells trucks better than any scripted ad. For Ricciardo, the consequence is equally clear: the scoreboard is gone, but the road trips are just beginning, and that is the version of himself he now gets to drive.

Related reading

• Matt Armstrong’s car career
• Ansu Fati’s career progression and future prospects

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