Daniel Ricciardo has described his toughest moment in Formula 1, labelling his last year with McLaren as his most difficult period. Ricciardo joined McLaren from Renault in 2021 but struggled to get up to speed alongside Lando Norris, although he did take victory at that year's Italian Grand Prix. After two seasons with the Woking-based squad, Ricciardo exited the team and found refuge at his former Red Bull team, where he took on the role of its third driver. He has since returned to a race seat in F1 with AlphaTauri, but is currently on the sidelines once again recovering from a hand fracture he picked up at Zandvoort.
'You become so used to having success’
Ricciardo was once one of the most respected drivers on the grid, winning seven Grands Prix during his stint with Red Bull. As he looks to rebuild his career, the Australian outlined that his final time with McLaren saw him dip to a low he had never previously experienced in his racing career. “I think it was probably the last year or so, going through the struggles and the lows,” he said on the Talking Bull podcast. “You become so used to having success or just being fast and getting lots of pats on your back. “There are always moments of head scratching, but not a whole lot, where there was a lot of head scratching in the last 12 months. “I think there were times when I would for sure let it get me a bit too low. “I really learnt to adjust a little bit and just try to take some learnings from those. “When you win, it's easy and all you want to do is celebrate, you don't want to do your homework when you want to go and enjoy the moment which is totally fair enough. “But it's when you don’t, they're the days that you can really learn the most from and I think not enjoying that feeling made me really hungry to try and find a way to overcome it. “That was a challenging time for sure. But I think it also made me learn a lot.”
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