F1 Rumour: Daniel Ricciardo Thinking Of Retiring As McLaren Yields Poor Results

One of our favourite drivers on the grid Daniel Ricciardo recently joked about retiring after a poor start to the 2022 F1 season. And while he says it in jest, I wonder how much truth was actually behind the sentiment.

Danny Ric hasn’t had the best start to his season with McLaren struggling with a number of issues from cooling to brakes. The Bahrain Grand Prix saw the Australian end in P15 with teammate Lando Norris one place behind him. Saudi Arabia saw Ricciardo retire early due to powertrain issues, and while Lando finished 7th, fans aren’t holding out much hope for the team.

McLaren has even gone as far as to publicly apologise to Ricciardo:

“We have to apologise to Daniel,” team principal Andreas Seidl said during a post-race debrief.

“Without his mechanical failure we would have had both cars home in the points. We’ll analyse the exact cause of his DNF when we’re home.”

Ricciardo also gave his own opinions on his car’s performance:

“The end result was obviously not what I wanted, but this weekend was more promising and we performed better on this track,” he said.

“We’re still not where we want to be, but this was a small step in the right direction. Without the issue that ended my race, we could’ve had both cars finishing in the points.”

But now, in a reaction video by the drivers to the reveal of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Ricciardo jokes that he was thinking of retiring from the sport:

“I was gonna retire, I will not no more,” he told the camera.

I’m wondering if there’s an element of truth behind this after a run of recent bad luck. After starting his F1 career with HRT in 2011, this is his 11th season in the sport. I hope he doesn’t retire anytime soon, but it has to be questioned.

We surprised our drivers with some news earlier this year…

Do you think they're excited? 😂#F1 #LasVegasGP @Vegas pic.twitter.com/wkgI5FtP7a

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 31, 2022