Why F1 risks not appreciating Ricciardo's inadvertent farewell

By:

Matt Kew

Nov 9, 2022, 5:07 PM

Hoping to remain in the F1 paddock in some form in 2023, Daniel Ricciardo has put a pin in his racing career to give himself the best chance of a 2024 reprieve. But it's a huge risk for the Australian – and F1 could theoretically lose one of its superstars with barely any commotion

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Daniel Ricciardo is poised to make a calculated gamble. In only two races’ time, he will hit pause on his frontline racing career to seemingly occupy a third driver role. That spell on the sidelines, he hopes, will better position him to bag a strong seat for 2024.

The Australian, bought out of his McLaren contract a year ahead of schedule owing to his current nadir, has admitted to being caught a little off-guard by the madness of the driver market silly season just gone. And with Alpine unwilling to reunite with an old flame, while Ricciardo didn’t fancy plying his trade towards the back of the grid at Williams or Haas, suddenly his options to retain a race seat looked a little lean.

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Matt Kew

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Matt Kew is Autosport's F1 Editor, a role he has held since March 2022 after stints covering Formula E, Extreme E and the British Touring Car Championship.

Matt joined Autosport in 2018 to work predominantly on the magazine, but his relentless quoting of Alan Partridge meant office colleagues soon thought he would be better suited to increased field work.

Needless to say, Matt had the last laugh when he won the Motorsport UK Young Journalist of the Year Award in 2019.

His interest in motorsport was sparked by regular trips to watch ASCAR crash around Rockingham's banked oval.

Matt read politics and philosophy at the University of Sheffield - receiving first-class honours for his dissertation assessing the lack of female participation in top-tier motor racing.

He covered a wide variety of national race and rally meetings for Autosport as a freelancer before joining full-time. His best efforts to argue the merits of historic racing is undone by a questionable taste in music and James Bond actors.