Red Bull have confirmed Daniel Ricciardo will not see out the season at their second F1 team, RB.
Just 14 months after handing Ricciardo his return to F1, Red Bull have chosen to replace him with Liam Lawson for the final six rounds, beginning with the United States Grand Prix in Austin.
The widely-expected move follows a weekend of intense speculation over Ricciardo’s future during the Singapore Grand Prix weekend. The veteran of over 250 grand prix starts and eight-times grand prix winner was visibly emotional after finishing Sunday’s race, admitting he knew that “could be it” for his F1 career.
Neither RB or owners Red Bull gave any official indication that they were set to drop Ricciardo from the team following the weekend. However, the team has now confirmed that Ricciardo has competed in his final race for RB.
Team principal Laurent Mekies thanked Ricciardo for his contribution to the team since joining them in the middle of last season. “He 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,” he said.
“Daniel has been a true gentleman both on and off the track and never without that smile. He will be missed, but will always hold a special place within the Red Bull family.”
Lawson will replace Ricciardo for the second time in as many years. The 22-year-old raced in five grands prix for RB in 2023 after Ricciardo broke his left wrist in a practice crash at Zandvoort.
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His spell as a substitute was widely regarded as a success. Lawson acquitted himself well on his short-notice debut in the Dutch Grand Prix, then scored the team’s best result of the season up to that point with ninth place in Singapore.
Mekies said Lawson “coped well under difficult circumstances” last year and expects his integration into the team will prove a “natural transition.”
“It’s great to see young talent from within the Red Bull family make the next step,” he added. “We’re looking forward to getting our heads down and focusing on the rest of the season together.”
For Ricciardo, losing his race seat at RB is likely to mean the end of his F1 career. He appeared to acknowledge as much in a social media post following the announcement of his sacking.
“I’ve loved this sport my whole life,” he said. “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 sport 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.”
The 35-year-old made his world championship debut with HRT in 2011 as a Red Bull junior, before racing for two seasons with Toro Rosso, the team now known as RB.
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Ricciardo was promoted to Red Bull’s senior team in 2014 alongside Sebastian Vettel. He proved to have the ability to fight at the front of the field, taking his maiden grand prix victory in Canada alongside two further wins in Hungary and Belgium and five other podium appearances.
Ricciardo raced with Red Bull for five seasons until deciding to leave the team at the end of 2018 due to his concerns over his standing compared to younger team mate Max Verstappen. He moved to Renault where he raced for two seasons before joining McLaren in 2021.
Despite taking a memorable, and likely final, grand prix victory in Monza that year, Ricciardo’s first season with McLaren proved disappointing as he struggled to adapt to the unfamiliar car and was regularly beaten by younger team mate Lando Norris. When his struggles continued in 2022, McLaren took the remarkable step of breaking his contract with more than a year remaining on his deal in favour of signing rookie Oscar Piastri.
Without a drive for 2023, Ricciardo was signed by Red Bull as a reserve driver, testing for the team under the Testing with Previous Cars programme and carrying out demonstration runs for the world champions. Soon afterwards Red Bull chose to drop its underperforming new driver Nyck de Vries from its second F1 team, by now called AlphaTauri, and chose Ricciardo as his replacement.
This season, Ricciardo has been out-performed by team mate Yuki Tsunoda, scoring 12 points through three top ten finishes and a fourth place finish in the Miami sprint race compared to Tsunoda’s 22 points from seven top tens. Ricciardo has also only reached Q3 on three occasions in 2024, compared to nine times for Tsunoda, and lost the head-to-head qualifying battle 6-12 to his team mate.
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