Daniel Ricciardo’s terrible 2022 form has been mocked by an unlikely culprit – the sport itself.
Ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix, F1TV’s subscribers were listening to presenter Laura Winter and driver Jamie Chadwick preview the race, during which time they discussed Ricciardo’s struggles, accompanied by a shot of the embattled Aussie and his engineer with a TV graphic.
The graphic would normally only include the driver’s name, team and race number – but this one had an added caption: “struggling again”.
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The pre-race show was produced by the Formula One Management (FOM) as part of its F1TV subscription service, and was not part of the F1 world feed.
In his worst showing of the year, Ricciardo finished 17th of 18 runners – ahead of only Nicholas Latifi in the Williams, and behind the Haas of Kevin Magnussen who hit the wall on lap two.
The race was won by Max Verstappen – his 10th of the year, equalling his tally from his championship-winning season last year.
Ricciardo started 17th, and was only in 16th at the end of the second lap when Magnussen grazed the wall on the run to turn three.
It would be the highest in the order he would run all day. He dropped to plum last when he pitted at the end of lap 11, and he had climbed to only 18th when he stopped again at the end of lap 27.
He was running 17th at the midpoint of the race, and dropped to 19th after being passed by the two Haas’ of Schumacher and the recovering Magnussen in consecutive laps.
He would remain second last for the rest of the day, only moving up courtesy of retirements to Yuki Tsunoda and Valtteri Bottas.
After the race, Ricciardo said he knew his side of the garage was going to struggle in the race after qualifying so poorly.
“It was always going to be a tricky Sunday because of where we started and the nature of the track,” he told Sky Sports.
“The first few laps were not too bad. I think we made some places here and there but starting that far back its hard to make a big impression, you need a big difference to make some moves and overtakes.
“In clear air, it felt like I had a little bit of pace to use – but it didn’t always seem to last long. So, obviously another challenging weekend.”
Ricciardo had earlier given the biggest hint yet of his plans for 2023.
He was filmed having a discussion with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez. While the rest of the conversation was inaudible, Ricciardo could clearly be heard saying “take a year off and come back in ’24”.
No other context was provided.
Ricciardo is still being linked to the presently-vacant seat at Alpine, although AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly is becoming favourite to land the seat.
A seat still remains at Williams alongside Alex Albon, and possibly at Haas alongside Magnussen.
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