Daniel Ricciardo has revealed he spent months hiding “a lot of pain and sadness” after his Formula 1 career ended, and says he is now open to a one-off return to racing.
The eight-time grand prix winner opened up on the official F1 Beyond The Grid podcast, Formula1.com reported. Ricciardo left the sport after the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix, when Racing Bulls replaced him with Liam Lawson.
“It’s then a sense of humiliation, like I failed and I didn’t do what I once could,” Ricciardo said. “Trying to deal with those next few months, I understood it as I was just hiding from the humiliation.”
“People saw me out in public. I was having a good time and having a drink or whatever, and I was just really hiding from what I really felt deep inside, which was a lot of pain and sadness.”
Grateful they ‘pulled the trigger’
Ricciardo said he had wanted to walk away more than once, including after the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix and at Silverstone in 2015, and feared he would have kept going if his contracts had kept being extended.
“I still don’t like how it ended, but there’s also a part of me which is grateful that they pulled the trigger because I wouldn’t want to be doing it now,” he said.
Read more: Jack Doohan Misses Haas Seat as Rafael Camara Signs for 2027
Le Mans one-off on the table
The 37-year-old said a visit to the Indianapolis 500 in May had rekindled his love of racing, 7NEWS reported, and he flagged a one-off farewell, potentially at a race like the 24 Hours of Le Mans, rather than a full season.
“I would love to have a nicer ending but I need to make sure that it’s for the right reasons and I’m not just doing it to create a fairytale and to have the last line in the book that has a smile and not sadness,” Ricciardo said.
Read more: Kimi Antonelli Wins US Grand Prix but F1 Title Wait Goes to Mexico
‘Extremely proud’
Ricciardo won eight grands prix, including in Monaco and Monza, and added 24 more podiums between his 2011 debut with HRT and his final race in 2024.
“Now that I’m in, let’s say a good, even-keeled place, I’m extremely proud, shocked in many ways that it all happened,” he said.
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