If someone asked Daniel Ricciardo how he hoped his career would pan out following his decision to leave Red Bull, he would probably not have imagined sitting in an AlphaTauri five years later.
However, a sequence of questionable decisions and general bad luck has meant that Ricciardo has been forced to rediscover his mojo as an elite driver.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner recently spoke about some of the ‘bad habits’ the Australian has picked up during his time away from the team and Ricciardo has now responded to them.
It had been made public pretty early on into Ricciardo’s redemption at Red Bull’s sister team that the engineers would have to work closely with him to eliminate some of the ‘bad habits’ he had picked up.
Being axed by McLaren before picking up a deal with Red Bull to be the team’s third driver meant that Ricciardo’s confidence was understandably knocked.
“I think bad habits can just come in the form of a lack of confidence,” Ricciardo said on the Beyond The Grid podcast.
“It was the end of last year. Once the season was done, I jumped on the sim, I guess it was sometime in December before I went home for Christmas.
“Don’t get me wrong, I was also nervous because I’m stepping back into an environment that, I knew Christian was very open doors, but I didn’t know how other people at Red Bull felt about me coming back into the family, into the team, so I was also a little bit nervous with that.”
Ricciardo felt jittery during return
Five years ago, Ricciardo decided to jump the Red Bull ship and pursue racing at Renault.
He admitted that returning to the same unit did contribute to him feeling a little jittery earlier in the year.
“Yeah. Obviously, there was me telling them that I was leaving. That’s going to have its effect,” he said.
“But I think in that second half of the season, I think we all got over it as best as we could.
“It didn’t end sour or bad, but I understand some people can be hurt or confused by it.
“I did have a contract available to me so it’s not like the team never offered me something.
“They did, so me turning that down and going somewhere else, I understand that.
“And also, because I’m not coming off a high, I’m obviously coming off a pretty low season.
“I’m walking into the team that’s won the championship. So are people going to be like ‘who’s this washed up kid?’
“Or are they going to be happy to see me back and happy to try and like resurrect me a little bit?”
Ricciardo’s confidence was ‘shattered’
Prior to his return to Red Bull as the team’s third driver, Ricciardo spent two seasons at McLaren where he was consistently outperformed by teammate Lando Norris.
Eventually, McLaren decided to pay off the final year of his contract and instead offer the job to his fellow countryman Oscar Piastri.
“My confidence, I lost that,” Ricciardo said. “Where did that go?
“It’s funny, I look now and I’m not a coach to anyone, but I feel I could probably look, even in other sports, and maybe I could just look at the trend of a certain athlete and be like, ‘oh, that person needs time out.’
“I was just a bit burnt out and I think obviously not madly in love with it.
“I think that’s obviously a big tell-tale sign because it’s the reason we all really get into it, you know, passion comes first.
“I think the confidence was another thing. I think when I did my first simulator day at Red Bull, I realised, and the people there realised it. That made me realise I’m not really my true self.”
Ricciardo continued to show Red Bull that he still had a lot to offer and following a tyre testing session at Silverstone, he was offered a full-time role with AlphaTauri, with Nyck de Vries being shown the exit door.
Ricciardo has already been confirmed for the 2024 season and will be hoping to put in a good display throughout the season, with an eye on what will almost certainly be a vacant seat alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull in 2025.