Eight-time F1 race winner Daniel Ricciardo leaves RB and is replaced by Liam Lawson

CNN
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Visa Cash App The RB Formula One Team (RB) has announced that Daniel Ricciardo has left the team with immediate effect.

His successor will be Red Bull junior driver Liam Lawson. This puts an end to weeks of speculation.

After leaving McLaren without a seat for the 2023 season, Ricciardo moved to RB (then Alpha Tauri) mid-year to replace Nyck De Vries, whose performance was judged to be below par.

Ricciardo’s contract with the team expired at the end of the current season and he had been linked with a return to Red Bull, but RB – Red Bull’s sister team – made the decision to replace the Australian early.

“I have loved this sport my whole life,” Ricciardo wrote in an Instagram post. “It’s wild and wonderful and it’s been a journey.”

“Thank you to the teams and individuals who played their part. Thank you to the fans who sometimes love the sport more than I do. Thank you. There will always be ups and downs, but it was fun and honestly I wouldn’t change a thing.

“Until the next adventure.”

RB team boss Laurent Mekies thanked Ricciardo for his efforts over the last two seasons.

“He brought a wealth of experience and talent to the team and displayed a fantastic attitude which helped everyone to develop and foster a strong team spirit,” he said in a statement. “Daniel was a true gentleman both on and off the track and always had a smile on his face. He will be missed but he will always hold a special place in the Red Bull family.”

Ricciardo has an impressive record in his 14 F1 seasons. He has won eight races, finished on the podium 32 times – good enough for 35th place in the all-time list – and finished in the top three in the drivers’ championship twice. He scored 1,329 points in 257 races.

He competed in his last race on Sunday at the Singapore Grand Prix, where he finished 18th.

Ricciardo joined the Red Bull Academy as a teenager and made his F1 debut for Spanish team HRT in 2011 before moving to Red Bull’s sister team, then called Toro Rosso, the following year. He was called up to the main team in 2014 and spent five seasons with the Austrian manufacturer, scoring eight wins.

“When I first started the sport and moved to Europe, I was – some people might not believe this – quite shy and not very confident,” he recently told CNN Sport in an exclusive interview. “And I think I was also… just quite young and immature. When I signed up for the Red Bull program at 18… that responsibility, that pressure, all that, it forced me to grow up.”

He moved to Renault in 2019 before moving to McLaren in 2021. He struggled during his time with the British team, although he did take a memorable – and likely his last – victory at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.

“I’m proud. Don’t get me wrong, if (my F1 career) ended today, I would be proud of what I have achieved,” Ricciardo told CNN ahead of the announcement on Thursday. “But you are never completely satisfied because the reason I got into Formula 1 was to become world champion.”

“I can be proud without it because I have tried hard. But yes, I would like to add that anyway. That would give me a 100 percent picture of happiness and satisfaction,” he added.

Only time will tell if Ricciardo will make another spectacular comeback to the sport, but fans will have to accept a grid without the Australian as RB embraces the youth movement.

The team has served as a development base for future Red Bull drivers in the past, but no driver has been called up to the squad since Alex Albon in 2019.

Lawson, 22, has some F1 experience, having filled in for Ricciardo for five races in 2023 when he suffered a wrist injury and serving as a reserve driver for both Red Bull and RB.

The New Zealand native will make his debut as a full-time racing driver at the US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas next month.