The end of the year was okay. In Mexico, we went from mediocre results to a really high 7th place. But that didn’t discourage him. Because now he has a full preseason to prepare himself.
So when we met for our annual pre-season shoot at London’s IMG Studios in February, he was buzzing, despite having to start the day 11 hours early and talk to me at 6pm local time. “Still more to prove,” was the headline. That leaves the carrot of the Red Bull Drive.
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But while the speed was evident, as evidenced by a brilliant fourth-place finish in the Miami Sprint and points wins in Canada, Austria and Belgium, what Ricciardo was missing was consistency. That was once Ricciardo’s strength, but for whatever reason he has been unable to string together the strong results that he and his old boss Christian Horner were confident he was capable of.
What made life even worse was that his teammate Yuki Tsunoda was appearing in a different car. Red Bull is yet to be convinced that they should promote the Japanese driver despite the fact that Ricciardo has not scored any points despite his form this year, suggesting that strategy has not always served him well this year. Despite the fact that his performance improved, Ricciardo did not score any points. This form coincided with a decline in the quality of the car that left him out of points contention, damaging his standing among Red Bull’s top management.
It wasn’t for lack of effort. Ricciardo gave his all. As always, I played with all my heart. But for some reason it didn’t work anymore.
