The story of F1’s McLaren Driver.
By: Swarit 12.3
Faced with numerous scandals, and often times impropriety, the annual Formula One season never fails to provide its audience with a fair share of drama and theatrics. From Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen’s on-track rivalry to the removal of Nikita Mazepin, only a year after his debut, each track has its own history associated with it. As of now, one of the most brought up questions within the avid F1 community is one that regards the 33-year-old Australian, McLaren driver, Daniel Ricciardo and where he would be if he never made that controversial switch from Red Bull to Renault back in 2018.
These past few years, there has evidently been lots of struggle for the Australian- struggling to the desired position on the podium. On multiple accounts, Ricciardo has stated that the primary reason for his departure was the “lack of stability” he faced at the Red Bull organization. A reason that has led many of his enthusiastic fans to believe that the Red Bull racing corporation strongly favored his teammate, the up-and-coming Max Verstappen (a now two-time world champion), over Daniel himself who, at that point, had proven his worth and potential on multiple occasions.
One such instance of Ricciardo’s driving magnificence was put on display in 2018’s Monaco Grand Prix. A great feat, where he was able to bring home a victory despite multiple challenges such as: driving against the championship contender, Sebastian Vettel, who tailed closely behind him, driving with severe MGU-K problems (which hindered his abilities to access his 7th and 8th gears), and driving on an average of 20km/h slower than his opponents. Regardless of the issues that should have brought him down, he still managed to cross the checkered flag first above all his opposers.
Nowadays, many believe that Danny is nothing but a relic of the past and that he’ll never reach the level he was on at Red Bull. This is evident from his races succeeding those at Red Bull. It seems that the Red Bull car was the nimblest one Ricciardo ever boarded, and no other team since then has been able to provide him with one which is quite up to the standard of the RB14. Ricciardo’s circumstance leads us to question whether a motorsport driver could ever become ‘great’ solely on the basis of their driving ability alone.
Over the years, a number of drivers that have been limited by the performance of their vehicles, haven’t been able to display their capabilities in a proper manner. By far, in the currently on-going season, Charles LeClerc has been the clearest example of this concept. Originally a championship contender himself, LeClerc’s performance has been inhibited due to poor strategy and multiple engine failures throughout the races that have taken place so far.
Ricciardo has been living Leclerc’s season for the past 4 years. His career started its descent with the 2 years he spent at Renault, followed by another 2 disastrous seasons spent with “the best of the rest”: McLaren. Even though he’s had a couple races which have gotten fans nostalgic of the Ric’s glory days, his seasons have always had the general outcome of ‘average at best’.
Although he got McLaren their first win in years, the motorsport organization has announced that they’ve decided to part ways with him, and declared their driver lineup to consist of two young and upcoming superstars in the form of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who have promised to bring the team up to its full potential.
Sadly, these promises have caused Danny Ric to be left without a seat on the grid for the following season. In spite of Daniel’s affirmation that he does plan to come back to the Formula 1 scene in the near future, many critics and self-proclaimed Formula 1 theorists have begun to question whether he will ever return to a track as a racer. Who knows, maybe our beloved Honey Badger will come back after a well needed break to show viewers that he still has what it takes to win the championship. I guess we’ll find out.
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