The pitlane entrance, starting grid and podium at Silverstone motor racing circuit during the British Grand Prix. Since this year's Silverstone, it has been announced that Daniel Ricciardo has returned to the full line up!

Ashley Thieme

The Honey Badger is back on the grid! On Tuesday 11 July, Daniel Ricciardo took his place in the cockpit of the Red Bull RB19 for testing laps at Silverstone. Later, news broke that he would replace Nyck de Vries with immediate effect on Red Bull’s sister team, AlphaTauri.

RICCIARDO’S FORMULA ONE CAREER

AlphaTauri is so not unfamiliar to Ricciardo. He raced for the team back in 2012 and 2013 when it was operating under its previous name, Toro Rosso.

He moved up to Red Bull for the 2014 season where he secured 29 podiums in his time there. He made the move to Renault (now Alpine) for the 2019 season as Red Bull was no longer the right fit for him, as he discusses in Drive To Survive.

“The swap was met with criticism from motorsport fans”

After two seasons with Renault, Daniel moved to McLaren in 2021. The team made the decision to replace Ricciardo with Oscar Piastri for the 2023 season after Ricciardo finished the 2022 season 11th in the driver standings with 37 points.

The swap was met with criticism from motorsport fans but Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren, stuck by his decision. To the surprise of many fans, this season Ricciardo made a return to Red Bull as their test driver.

REGAINING THE SEAT

It’s certainly no secret that Ricciardo’s Formula One story was never a closed book. In an interview with ESPN, Ricciardo said there was “certainly some unfinished business” and that he wanted to get back on the grid. He has remained ready to race throughout this season.

There have been rumours among motorsport fans for a number of weeks that the performance of de Vries was not up to scratch for the AlphaTauri team. Sitting at 20th in the driver standings after Silverstone, his seat was at risk.

It was also recognised by Sport Illustrated’s F1 Briefings that: “A quick swap wouldn’t be a shock with Red Bull always being quick to make driver line-up alterations”.

“a really impressive and competitive position for Ricciardo to be in.”

This brings us to Ricciardo’s Pirelli tyre test at Silverstone on Tuesday. It gave Red Bull an opportunity to evaluate where Ricciardo’s performance capabilities were at, since he hasn’t been in an Formula One car since last season.

Ricciardo came back with something to prove. While testing, he set a lap time that would have gained him a starting place on the front row at the Silverstone Grand Prix, as stated by PlanetF1. Considering that the current World Champion Max Verstappen set a pole time of 1:26.720, and Lando Norris clocked in just 0.241 seconds over that, this is a really impressive and competitive position for Ricciardo to be in.

Ricciardo’s first race back at AlphaTauri will be the Hungarian Grand Prix on July 23rd, which he won whilst at Red Bull in 2014. In this 70-lap race, Ricciardo will need to prove that it was worth replacing de Vries mid-season by getting into the points.

FAN REACTION

The 34-year-old Australian won fans over in Netflix’s documentary Drive To Survive, based on Formula One seasons. An eight-time Grand Prix winner, he has supporters from all over the world, and is a fan favourite in his home country of Australia.

Matt Gallagher, presenter of the P1 podcast, tweeted his excitement, proclaiming “OMG DANIEL RICCIARDO IS OFFICIALLY BACK!”. This is clearly something Ricciardo’s following has been hoping for throughout the season.

Other fans simply tweeted gifs of the driver smiling and giggling to portray their excitement. The Formula One account also shared their excitement, and it’s fair to say that their social media interaction is about to skyrocket.

Daniel Ricciardo is a popular character on the grid as well as a talented racer. He is known for causing mischief, winding up the other drivers, and of course, doing a “shoey” after a race win (drinking champagne out of the shoes that he raced in).

But will this be a permanent stay for the Honey Badger?

One thing’s for certain. Race weekends have not been the same without him.

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Ashley is a Masters student at Cardiff University studying Magazine Journalism.

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