Daniel Ricciardo admitted that he was “50/50” on his Formula 1 career ending after his torrid stint with McLaren concluded last season.
Despite notching McLaren’s sole victory of the turbo-hybrid engine era at Monza in 2021, Ricciardo struggled throughout the entirety of his two-year stay with the Woking squad.
The Australian was outscored heavily by team-mate Lando Norris by 122 points to 37, ultimately costing McLaren fourth place to Alpine in the Constructors’ Championship.
McLaren elected to part ways with Ricciardo one year before the end of his contract, prompting the eight-time F1 winner to return to Red Bull in a reserve driver capacity.
Nyck de Vries’ troubles opened up a seat at AlphaTauri in July and Ricciardo asserts that he has been reinvigorated since marking his F1 comeback with the Faenza-based outfit.
“Sitting here a year ago, I was like ‘could this be my last race?’” he said in Abu Dhabi. “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 [injury, sustained in Zandvoort]. I just kind of feel a little bit reborn again. I feel re-energised and I’ve definitely got a second wind.”
Ricciardo concedes that he expected to be on the sidelines for the entire year, citing that he couldn’t have imagined returning in advance of that at the start of the season.
The 34-year-old also acknowledges that his time away from a full-time schedule broadened his stance that winning wasn’t solely the key to enjoying his racing again.
“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,” he added. “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 even qualifying 14th or something, it was still just having fun.
“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 but it doesn’t just need to be winning every time.”
