Daniel Ricciardo says change of mindset to enjoy the sport after time off helped him jump back in the car midway in F1 2023.
Having had a difficult end to his 2022 F1 season and getting dropped by McLaren, Ricciardo found his way back by joining Red Bull as their reserve. He found his mojo back after spending time in the simulator where he saw the spark was still there.
He spent first half of the season on sidelines and eventually got the opportunity to make his F1 return with AlphaTauri as Nyck de Vries’ replacement just before the summer break. The Australian readily was happy despite the results he had.
Even with the hand injury which cost him some rounds, Ricciardo was overall pleased and felt he was reborn again after ending 2022 without knowing his future. “Obviously, I wish this never happened, just because it was uncomfortable and painful and whatever,” he said to media. “But now that it’s obviously done, I still look back on this year as a positive.
“Because sitting here a year ago, I was like, ‘could this be my last race?’ I don’t exaggerate when I say that. I really didn’t know. I honestly thought it was 50-50. So, to have the year I’ve had and forget the hand, I just kind of feel a little bit maybe reborn again, is kind of the right word. I feel just re-energised.
“And I’ve definitely got a second wind. If I then speak of the hand, for this not to feel like a setback probably speaks volumes. I could see how maybe some people would see that lame accident with high consequences, ‘maybe Daniel should just give it up. ‘That’s probably just a sign that he should just call it a day’.
“But I never thought that. I never felt like that. So yeah, that was maybe even more power to the decision of kind of trying to kick some butt,” summed up Ricciardo, who is now channeling his mindset where he wishes to enjoy being a F1 driver rather than burden himself to procure results when it is not possible to do so.
With the time off, he feels in a better space and his perspective has changed as well. “If I didn’t race at all this year, if I had a whole 12 months off, I think that would have been no problem as well,” continued Ricciardo. “Because just the power of time off for me was just really, really beneficial and it gave me so much.
“Fortunately, I did find enough in those six months. If you’d have asked me in January ‘okay, you’re going to jump in at AlphaTauri at Budapest? How do you feel?’ I would have said ‘well, I’m probably not ready, I need more time.’ But then by that point, it just made a lot more sense. Driving the cars, it feels fun again. And I qualified maybe 14th or something, I was still just having fun.
“So, I think that was really important for me where I wasn’t…I really wanted to think just having a bit of perspective with the time off. It’s not like my enjoyment in the sport should not be results based like yes I know whats a good lap or race that will help me sleep but it doesn’t just need to be winning every time.
“And I think that’s where I came to that kind of place where I was totally happy and comfortable at that time driving for 10th place team on the grid. Last year I said I don’t want to jump back into a car if it’s fighting at the back but it’s slowly started to make more and more sense,” summed up Ricciardo.
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