Daniel Ricciardo’s drift back towards Formula 1 has been gradual, deliberate, and — by his own admission — a little guarded.
The eight-time grand prix winner says he’s watching F1 regularly again in 2026 after a stretch where he felt he needed to step away entirely, following an ending to his driving career that left him more bruised than he expected. Ricciardo’s final start came at the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix, after which he was dropped from Red Bull’s junior team, Racing Bulls. A year later he announced his retirement from racing and has since taken on a role as a Ford Racing global ambassador.
Speaking on the *Speed Street* podcast, Ricciardo was asked whether he still puts motorsport on the TV these days. He didn’t hesitate.
“I do,” he said. But the details matter: this isn’t the old Ricciardo, structuring a Sunday around lights out, living and dying by every strategic call and Safety Car timing. He’s watching, just not with the same emotional handcuffs.
“In the immediate end of my career, I ultimately hurt, and I didn’t know how I felt towards the sport,” Ricciardo explained. “You’re like, ‘What do I do. Do I need to remove myself.’ It was just weird. So I didn’t follow for a bit.”
That admission cuts closer to the bone than the usual post-exit talking points. Drivers leaving F1 often talk about relief — the travel, the pressure, the noise — but Ricciardo’s version is more like grief. Not the heartbreak of losing a seat, exactly, but the strange whiplash of watching the sport move on without you while you’re still figuring out what the end even means.
Now, he says, the relationship is being rebuilt on healthier terms. He’ll catch races live when it suits, and if it doesn’t, he’ll pick it up later.
“I’m not stopping my day for it. If I missed the live coverage, I’ll watch it later that day or whatever,” Ricciardo said. “Luckily, I do have other interests and things to do, so my world doesn’t stop for it. But am I watching it? Do I enjoy it? Yeah.”
It’s a small line, but it says plenty about the mindset shift. For a driver who spent most of his adult life in a performance tunnel — measured by lap time, judged by Sundays, defined by contract cycles — learning not to orbit F1 is a skill in itself. And it’s one a lot of ex-drivers don’t master quickly, especially those who didn’t get to choose the timing or the terms of their final chapter.
Ricciardo also clarified that when he talks about rebuilding a “relationship”, he means F1 specifically. But he doesn’t pretend the feelings stop at the paddock gates.
“I think a lot of things happened that questioned my relationship with racing,” he said. “Racing, as beautiful as it is, man, it can also rip your heart out, no matter what your career trajectory has done.
“It’s tough, so there’s a lot of heartbreak with it. I think sometimes you do question, ‘Why do I love this sport.’ At the end of my career, I was like, ‘Why do I love it,’ and I just wanted to remove myself for a bit.”
There’s an honesty there that will resonate with anyone who’s watched how brutal F1 can be when it decides a driver’s time is up — especially in the Red Bull universe, where the line between opportunity and exit can be thin and sudden. Ricciardo isn’t replaying old arguments, and he isn’t dressing it up as a noble farewell. He’s simply describing the emotional hangover.
One detail that stands out is his suggestion that stepping into other paddocks has helped. Ricciardo confirmed he’ll attend the 2026 Indy 500, with Alex Palou having claimed pole position for Sunday’s race. Being around racing without the baggage of being the story — without the questions about form, future, or whether he “still has it” — is a different kind of access to the sport. It’s motorsport without the constant audit.
“So there was a period where I wasn’t watching much,” Ricciardo said. “But I watched a lot lately… I think going to other races kind of rebuilt a healthy relationship.”
There’s no grand tease here about a comeback, no dramatic hint that he’s about to miss it too much to stay away. If anything, Ricciardo sounds like someone who’s finally found a way to keep what he loved about F1 without letting the worst parts of it keep a grip.
In a sport that tends to turn drivers into either champions or cautionary tales, Ricciardo’s current phase feels more human: a former star learning how to be a fan again — on his own time, at his own distance, with just enough space to enjoy it.
