Daniel Ricciardo calls time on F1 — and signs on with Ford
Daniel Ricciardo has confirmed what most in the paddock suspected for months: his Formula 1 career is over. The eight-time grand prix winner, who hasn’t started a race since late 2024, announced his retirement ahead of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix — the scene of his last F1 victory with McLaren back in 2021 — and immediately stepped into a new role as a global racing ambassador for Ford.
It’s a neat landing spot for a driver who built a brand on big moves and bigger smiles. Ford, of course, is Red Bull’s engine partner for the new 2026 rules, with Red Bull Powertrains collaborating with the Blue Oval as Honda heads to Aston Martin. Ricciardo knows that world as well as anyone, even if he won’t be driving the next-gen Red Bull. The synergy is obvious.
Ricciardo’s F1 exit was abrupt. His comeback run with Racing Bulls ended in the aftermath of the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix, when the team switched him out for Liam Lawson for the final six races of the year. He stepped away from the grid and, for the most part, from the sport. Twelve months on, at 36, he’s made it official: “I decided it was time to retire,” he wrote in a note shared by Ford.
“While my racing days are behind me, my love for anything with wheels will always remain high,” he said, adding that he’s “proud to be partnering with Ford to become a Global Ford Racing Ambassador.” The job description? Broad, but with a very Ricciardo twist. He’ll work closely with Ford Racing and put particular emphasis on the Raptor brand — trucks, lifestyle, the lot. This isn’t just a sticker on a cap. He’s been a Raptor customer since 2017 — “before I even owned a home in the US,” he laughed — and he’s been in and out of Ford’s orbit ever since, from a meet-up with CEO Jim Farley in Dearborn to a visit to the Cologne operation where he sat in on a live crash test.
The statement reads like Ricciardo speaks: upbeat, a little cheeky, and obsessed with having fun. “For me, racing was always about having fun,” he wrote. “It made me happy and created memories that will last a lifetime.” There’s plenty of that baked into the Ford partnership too, he says — a company “using motorsport to bring new technologies to road cars,” with Raptor morphing into a global cult item. “I’m one of thousands of happy customers,” he added. “Some of my favourite memories are road-tripping behind the wheel of my Raptor.”
If it sounds like a soft landing after a bruising couple of seasons, it is — and it’s smart. Ricciardo’s value to F1 was never just lap time. Beyond those eight wins and the fame of that 2021 Monza triumph, he brought a looseness and a humanity to a paddock that can feel machine-polished. The shoey was a gimmick until it wasn’t; then it became a calling card, one that sold the sport to fans who’d never cared for gear ratios.
In sporting terms, his career will be debated for years. The early Red Bull period marked him out as a hard racer with millimetre-perfect instincts on the brakes. The McLaren years were more complicated. The 2024 return to the Red Bull fold via Racing Bulls didn’t deliver the reboot some hoped for, and once Lawson got his shot late that season, the path back narrowed. It happens, even to big names.
The Ford move keeps him in the racing conversation without the weekly grind. And with Red Bull-Ford at the heart of F1’s 2026 reset, don’t be surprised if you see Ricciardo everywhere the brand wants to be: from F1 paddocks to Dakar bivouacs and Le Mans pitlanes, name-checked in his note as the places Ford lives. That’s the point. He may be done chasing tenths, but he’s not done telling stories about speed.
Monza, fittingly, bookends it. The last time Ricciardo stood on that rostrum, he drank from his shoe and told the world he was back. Today, he’s not claiming a comeback. He’s closing one chapter and opening another — swapping parc fermé for the Raptor trail, and the helmet for a microphone.
F1 will miss the grin. Ford will make sure we still see it.
