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Daniel Ricciardo won't see out the rest of the 2024 Formula 1 season at RB - with Liam Lawson replacing him.
Ricciardo's F1 future had been the source of constant speculation throughout his turbulent 2024 season.
He had returned to the Red Bull fold last year with the sole aim of becoming Max Verstappen's team-mate once more. But Ricciardo hasn't delivered the results to convince Red Bull that he's a better bet than Verstappen's current team-mate Sergio Perez.
Confirmation of Ricciardo's immediate exit from his RB cockpit came four days after a Singapore GP weekend that was dominated by rumours of his impending exit.
A social media statement for RB with team boss Laurent Mekies paying tribute to Ricciardo, confirmed his departure.
Thank you Daniel š
— Visa Cash App RB F1 Team (@visacashapprb) September 26, 2024
ā°Laurent Mekies on Daniel: āHe has brought a lot of experience and talent to the Team with a fantastic attitude, which has helped everyone to develop and foster a tight team spirit.ā#F1 #VCARB pic.twitter.com/cqKrbFAehU
Ricciardo wrote on Instagram: "I've loved this sport my whole life. It's wild and wonderful and been a journey. To the teams and individuals that have played their part, thank you.
"To the fans who love the sports sometimes more than me haha, thank you. It'll always have its highs and lows but it's been fun and truth be told, I wouldn't change it. Until the next adventure."
Around 15 minutes later confirmation came that it would be Lawson stepping into his cockpit.
It became increasingly clear that Red Bull's patience was wearing thin and even though the team insisted no decision would be made until after the weekend, rumours persisted that Ricciardo's time was up.
By Sunday it appeared Ricciardo had accepted that Singapore could be his last weekend in F1. He was increasingly emotional in interviews across the weekend, received a guard on honour from guests at RB's hospitality unit and openly acknowledged that it could be his 257th and final F1 start.
His exit from RB likely ends Ricciardo's F1 career. While there's still an open Sauber seat for 2025, Ricciardo isn't a contender for it and has repeatedly suggested he'll only stick around in F1 if there's a viable path to a frontrunning seat. His Instagram post certainly had a finality to it.
He'll walk away with eight grand prix victories - seven with Red Bull and his final with McLaren at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.
Superstar to journeyman
Ricciardo made his name in F1 when he usurped four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel as Red Bull's spearhead during a breakout 2014 season.
He was the only non-Mercedes driver to win a race that season, and was regarded by many as F1's best driver in 2014 and also in 2016 - where he measured up well against new team-mate Verstappen.
In the following seasons Verstappen closed in and soon overtook Ricciardo as the team's faster driver and focal point - and Ricciardo, who to this day remains the toughest rival Verstappen has faced in the Red Bull garage, then made a lucrative switch to Renault's works team for 2019.
Two years in F1's midfield were followed by another lucrative deal, this time with McLaren, but Ricciardo was thoroughly outclassed by incumbent Lando Norris there - to the point where his initial three-year deal was cut short after two.
After his early McLaren exit, Red Bull re-signed him as its reserve driver and soon placed him at its second team AlphaTauri partway through the 2023 season, in place of a floundering Nyck de Vries, although he himself then needed replacing for five races when he fractured his wrist in a Zandvoort practice crash.
The replacement was Lawson - who, having acquitted himself well, is now set to take Ricciardo's car again, this time until the end of the season.
Ricciardo had fitted in a major post-injury highlight with seventh in Mexico in 2023 - but struggled to hit the ground running in 2024, toiling while team-mate Yuki Tsunoda fired in a string of points finishes.
A fourth place in the Miami sprint did breathe life into Ricciardo's campaign - and there were further highs with eighth in Montreal (from fifth on the grid) and ninth in Austria.
But he couldn't deliver those kind of performances consistently enough and with RB's own relative car performance tailing off, Ricciardo was left with a 22-12 points deficit to Tsunoda that he'll now have no chance to overturn.
