The end of the year was good, a seventh place in Mexico, a real record in a streak of mediocre results. However, that didn’t depress him. Because now he would have a full preseason to prepare.
And so, when we met at London’s IMG studios in February, for the annual pre-season shoot, he was excited, even though he had to speak to me at 6pm local time after having started his day 11 hours earlier. “I still have more to prove,” was the headline. Do so and the carrot of a Red Bull boost remained.
But while the speed was clearly there, as demonstrated with a brilliant fourth place in the Miami Sprint and points in Canada, Austria and Belgium, what Ricciardo lacked was consistency. That was once Ricciardo’s strength, but for whatever reason, he simply couldn’t muster a run of good results that he (and his former boss Christian Horner) were convinced he was capable of.
What made life worse was that his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, was starring in the other car. With Red Bull still not convinced that they should promote the Japanese driver, even despite his form this year, Ricciardo was unable to score points, regardless of the fact that the strategy did not always help him this year or his improvement in His form coincided with a drop in car quality that knocked him out of points contention and hurt his stature among Red Bull’s top brass.
This was not for lack of trying. Ricciardo was giving his all, showing his heart as he always did. However, for some reason, it was no longer working.