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The end of the year was OK, a seventh place in Mexico a real high in an otherwise mediocre run of results. That didn’t get him down, though. Because now he’d have a full pre-season to ready himself.
And so, when we caught up in IMG Studios in London in February, for the annual pre-season shoot, he was buzzing – even though he had to talk to me at 6pm local time having started his day 11 hours earlier. “I’ve still got more to prove,” was the headline. Do that and the carrot of a Red Bull drive remained.
READ MORE: ‘More than just a driver’ – How social media reacted to Ricciardo’s departure from RB with his F1 career seemingly at an end
But while the speed was clearly there – as was showcased with a brilliant fourth in the Miami Sprint and points finishes in Canada, Austria and Belgium – it was the consistency that Ricciardo was missing. That was once Ricciardo’s strength, but for whatever reason, he simply couldn’t knit together a run of strong results that he – and his old boss Christian Horner – were convinced he was capable of.
What made life worse was that his team mate, Yuki Tsunoda, was starring in the other car. Given Red Bull have yet to be convinced they should promote the Japanese driver, even despite his form this year, that Ricciardo couldn’t score points – regardless of the fact that strategy didn’t always help him this year or the fact his improvement in form coincided with a downturn in the quality of the car that pulled it out of points-scoring contention – hurt his stature among Red Bull’s top brass.
This wasn’t for want of trying. Ricciardo was giving everything – driving his heart out as he always did. For whatever reason, though, it wasn’t working any more.
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