{"id":230074,"date":"2025-07-01T19:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T19:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/230074\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T19:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T19:26:09","slug":"daniel-ricciardo-enjoying-life-in-the-slow-lane-as-he-shares-update-on-post-f1-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/230074\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Ricciardo ‘enjoying life in the slow lane’ as he shares update on post-F1 plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Ricciardo has given an update on his situation following his exit from the F1 grid in 2024, with the Australian admitting that he is \u201cenjoying some life in the slow lane\u201d several months on from his last race.<\/p>\n

Ricciardo<\/a> faced a tumultuous few years in the sport in recent times, having been left without a seat entering into 2023 when a difficult spell at McLaren<\/a> resulted in the mutual decision to terminate his contract early at the end of 2022.<\/p>\n

He then returned to the Red Bull stable as a reserve driver before being drafted in to replace Nyck de Vries at the then-named AlphaTauri squad \u2013 now known as Racing Bulls<\/a> \u2013 midway through 2023.<\/p>\n

While he remained with the outfit into 2024, the driver from Perth struggled to return to his form of old and was replaced by Liam Lawson<\/a> for the remainder of the campaign following the Singapore Grand Prix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ricciardo \u2013 who turns 36 today \u2013 has not raced since then but has continued to be involved in supporting youngsters in motorsport through the Daniel Ricciardo Series, in which young drivers compete at the wheel of a DRS Ricciardo Kart across events held in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

The eight-time race winner was in attendance during the latest round at Buckmore Park<\/a> over the weekend and, when quizzed on how he is getting on at the moment, gave a positive response as he reflected on how his current venture reminds him of his early racing days.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll good!\u201d said Ricciardo. \u201cI\u2019m just enjoying some life in the slow lane. I mean, it sounds weird saying like retirement when I\u2019m 35 years old, but retirement from at least the world I was living in. It\u2019s cool.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be at the kart track\u2026 it\u2019s my first time at a race track since I guess Singapore, so quite a few months now. But it\u2019s cool to see the kids\u2026 this is why I started karting\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had photos with groups of the kids and I can tell the friendships they have, and these friendships will last a lifetime a lot of them. My best friend to this day was a friend that I raced karts with. It\u2019s nice to be back at like the grassroots of it and the most pure form of racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

With young karters at the track keen to meet Ricciardo, the former Red Bull<\/a> driver admitted that he has been able to appreciate what it felt like as a youngster in the sport since taking some time away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think now that I\u2019m a bit removed from it and life is not as chaotic, it\u2019s nice to remember what it was like to be at the start of the career,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe all have idols and heroes\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be very nervous meeting someone who I admired, so I understand sometimes it\u2019s a bit overwhelming. But everyone seems pretty cool. I guess maybe I\u2019m not the only driver they\u2019ve met before \u2013 there\u2019s a lot of F1 fans here!<\/p>\n

\u201cI think just to have someone that you want to try and obviously look up to and someone that can inspire you\u2026 if I\u2019m able to sprinkle a tiny bit of inspiration or motivation today by being here and having a chat to a few kids, that\u2019s awesome. That\u2019s something I know I appreciated when I was eight, nine, 10 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ricciardo also took a moment to reflect on the one piece of advice that he wished he had received when he was the age of those now in karting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I think I was quite lucky with the advice,\u201d the Australian conceded. “It was always just, \u2018Go and have fun\u2019. It wasn\u2019t about trying to impress someone or be someone you\u2019re not. \u2018If you do this you\u2019ll be on TV and make money\u2019. It wasn\u2019t about that, it was just, \u2018Go and have fun\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt kind of helped me also\u2026 like racing is scary, you know? I think it helped me at school have a bit more confidence. Everyone\u2019s shy, we all go through things growing up, so I think it kind of gave me confidence in myself as a person, also away from the track. So, that\u2019s something I took from it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut as far as the driving goes, honestly it was just about me having fun. I was playing with my friends [at the track], we were riding scooters and stuff, and my dad was always dragging me like, \u2018The kart\u2019s on the grid, put your helmet on!\u2019 The karting was kind of secondary a lot of the time. It was just to be in this environment with friends.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Ricciardo has given an update on his situation following his exit from the F1 grid in 2024,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-230074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114779624842554535","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}