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Daniel Ricciardo is open to the possibility of taking a Formula 1 sabbatical in 2023 if he cannot find the right deal after his McLaren contract comes to an early end.
McLaren and Ricciardo agreed a termination of the deal that was intended to cover 2023, with his departure announced yesterday.
Ricciardo says that his only interest is in continuing to race in F1, so although his priority is to be on the grid next year he can afford to hold on for the right opportunity.
“If it made sense, yes,” said Ricciardo when asked if he would consider an F1 sabbatical.
“It’s the only racing I’m interested in at this stage of my career. F1 is what I love and it’s where I see myself if I’m doing any racing.
“But if the stars don’t align and it doesn’t make perfect sense next year and if it means taking that time off to reset or re-evaluate, then if that’s the right thing to do then I’m willing to.”
McLaren CEO Zak Brown acknowledged earlier this week that the company offered Ricciardo to move him to another of its racing programmes, and that Ricciardo had little interest in that.
The 33-year-old, a winner of eight grands prix including last year’s Italian Grand Prix for McLaren, is adamant he still loves F1 and is backing himself to perform well in the future.
He has been linked to a number of vacancies, with a return to the Alpine team he raced for in its Renault guise from 2019-20 seemingly the most logical choice given it is the best available seat. He has also been talked of as a potential target for Haas and Williams.
But Ricciardo is unsure about where, if anywhere, he will race in F1 – stressing only the requirement for it to be a competitive proposition.
“I still love the sport and I think through all of this adversity I haven’t lost that confidence in myself,” said Ricciardo.
“We’ve had some tough weekends and you can’t help but show emotion sometimes, but I still love it and I still want to do it competitively. I want to do it in the right place.
“I never said I want to just be a driver to make up the numbers. If I’m here, I want to be here for a purpose.
“I don’t know what that means yet for the future, but of course if it’s the right opportunity then this is where I want to be.”
While Ricciardo is uncertain whether he will have the right race drive to do so, he has no doubts he’s capable of bouncing back from the difficulties of the past season-and-a-half with McLaren.
He has been consistently outperformed by team-mate Lando Norris at McLaren, with the pace deficit growing in 2022, but has no doubts about his worth as an F1 driver.
“Picking myself up is something I feel I’m very capable of doing,” said Ricciardo.
“This is certainly a big moment in time for my career but even if things aren’t always highlighted you’re always going through challenges and you always have to pick yourself up.
“I remember here [Spa] in 2008 when I was racing [two-litre] Formula Renault, it was the Saturday night before the race on Sunday and I got a real pep talk. It was just in one of those moments in my career, I still hadn’t yet made it but I really had to pull my head in and start making it happen.
“No one has a perfect career. I’ve learned to deal with it over time. This has been another challenge, another hurdle, but I simply see it as, if I want to pick myself up, I will.
“That fire, that belief, is still in me so if I want to make that choice I can. Obviously, I don’t have every option on the grid, it’s not like I can race wherever I want, but from a self-worth point of view, absolutely [I will recover from this].”
Ricciardo admits that his McLaren spell has not gone as hoped despite ending the team’s long win drought with victory in last year’s Italian Grand Prix.
He said that “as a collective, we just didn’t really get it right” but admitted there were too many difficult weekends since he joined the team.
But he believes he will be able to leave the team at the end of the year with his head held high given how hard he worked to make a success of it.
“It’s obviously not the nicest feeling but I look back on it and I can hold my head high in terms of applying myself and trying to make it work, trying to put everything in,” said Ricciardo.
“Sometimes you just have to accept that ‘OK, I tried and it didn’t necessarily work out’. But from that point of view, I don’t look back in terms of ‘oh man, I was slacking off’.
“I’m proud of the way we tried to make it happen and persist through it, but some things you just say they’re not meant to be.”
Now that he knows he does not have a future with McLaren in F1, Ricciardo is focused on a stronger end to his final season with the team.
“After all this there’s a bit of a weight off the shoulders and it’s just to go out there and race, go and have fun,” he said of his approach for the rest of the year.
“I always feel like I’ve got a point to prove but although the team’s made this decision, the team is behind me to make me get the most out of the last nine races and to finish on a high, so there’s a lot of people that support me and want me to do well.
“I’m not one to just drive around and enjoy it. I want to drive around as competitively as possible so there’s no slacking off.
“It’s just go out, have fun and try and get another Monza moment.”
