{"id":53266,"date":"2025-04-26T23:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T23:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/53266\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T23:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T23:02:08","slug":"daniel-ricciardo-was-f1s-smiling-assassin-and-the-sport-is-lost-without-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/53266\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Ricciardo was F1’s ‘smiling assassin’ and the sport is lost without him"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formula 1 has a Daniel Ricciardo<\/a> problem. Again. <\/b><\/p>\n

\nOn this occasion, the problem isn’t about him clogging up a Red Bull developmental seat or just being slow, but it might be worse in terms of the big picture. <\/p>\n

\nFor a sport which has found a new popularity as a personality-driven experience, with Drive To Survive<\/a><\/b> opening the public’s eyes to the characters on the grid, F1 seems to have run out of media darlings. <\/p>\n

\nSebastian Vettel and his love of nature? Gone. Zhou Guanyu’s fashion sense? Relegated to a reserve role. Danny Ric’s smile<\/a><\/b>, love of engaging with the media and natural bounce? Gone. <\/p>\n

\nOscar Piastri’s mum Nicole was talking about this issue recently<\/a><\/b>, saying of media interactions: “To be honest I don\u2019t know that any of them love it. I mean, Danny Ric was great at it.” <\/p>\n

\nShe couldn’t have been more right. The sport’s biggest name is a Dutchman whose disinterest in talking to traditional media outlets<\/a><\/b> is well known, while Lewis Hamilton has cut a broken, disappointed figure in front of Sky’s cameras<\/a><\/b> for at least 18 months now. <\/p>\n

\nThe top four in this year’s championship are Verstappen, two boilerplate posh English men and Piastri, who’s a stoic and reserved figure when he’s dealing with the press. There’s…kinda a dearth of fun dudes in F1 now. <\/p>\n

\nMaybe one of the youngsters can be that guy in the future, but right now they’re just young, nervous pups. There’s a famously spicy former world champion in the paddock, but Fernando Alonso<\/a>‘s settled more into the grumpy old man spot rather than being an g rogue. <\/p>\n

\nThere isn’t a place for Daniel Ricciardo<\/a><\/b> on the grid now. His performances just don’t justify it. But boy, is there a gaping hole in the sport<\/a><\/b> where his personality used to be. <\/p>\n

\nREAD MORE:<\/b> F1 chief Brown confirms major McLaren exit<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1 has a Daniel Ricciardo problem. Again. On this occasion, the problem isn’t about him clogging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[8051,4199,28421,707,4200,4277,12,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-53266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-chris-deeley","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-f1-analysis","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-gpfans","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114406761792521338","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53266","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=53266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}