Daniel Ricciardo wears Gucci jacket, gucci.com; and Casablanca shirt, casablancaparis.com. Photography by Yvan Fabing. Styling by David Bradshaw. Framed by the rectangular box of our video call, Daniel Ricciardo is grinning. “Part of me still pinches myself,” he says. “How did I end up here? How did Perth and Formula 1 meet?” This last part he says slowly, giving each word its own space as he casts his thoughts to his faraway hometown. He tilts his head to one side, that Colgate smile transmitting bemusement, or perhaps amazement, through the screen.
It’s the Thursday before race weekend. A few days later, that same supercharged smile would beam through the television from the top of the podium at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza. Ricciardo had executed a flawless run, breathing life into a difficult first season with his new team, McLaren. The Monza win was McLaren’s first Grand Prix victory in almost nine years and Ricciardo’s first since his much-valorised 2018 effort in Monaco, where he suffered a 25 per cent engine power loss on Lap 28 (of 78) and still defended his lead, making no errors, to win at the notoriously challenging track. It’s an oft-cited example of what makes the 32-year-old driver so good: he’s got grit, he’s got composure and he drives impeccably well.
As with any athlete who becomes a cultural fixation, much mythology surrounds Ricciardo. He’s called a “smiling assassin” and “honey badger”, and some believe the strategic operator’s jovial demeanour is a veil for his assertive driving. Exceptionally late braking and “dummy” moves, executed when overtaking, define his approach — tactical ploys that heighten both risk and reward. Where many drivers tend to bully other cars into submission, Ricciardo utilises clean manoeuvres that take his opponents by surprise. It’s a combination of style and skill that has commentators talk of his “racecraft”: his phenomenal ability to map a race and to get up from positions far back in the grid.
That racecraft is mirrored in his journey to Formula 1 itself. There have been only two Australian champions in the sport’s seven-decade history and while Australia hosts a Grand Prix, our interest in the sport pales in comparison with Europe’s. But once Ricciardo got it in his head that he could make it as a Formula 1 driver, his 2011 debut at the British Grand Prix was, perhaps, inevitable.
Ricciardo says he was no prodigy. But he was always determined. He grew up in an Italian Australian family in Duncraig, in Perth’s northern suburbs, and started karting at the age of nine after his father, a hobby motorcar racer, reluctantly bought him a “pretty crappy” go- kart. He says his parents used karting as a bargaining chip: if you’re good at school, you can go to the track. “I’ve always been a competitor with everything I’ve done, so naturally I wanted to then compete and see if I was any good,” he says. “It all took off from there.”
When he finished high school, his parents raised money through family and friends to get him to Europe to compete. It was a gesture of faith the teenager didn’t take lightly; focused where many his age are frivolous, he knew he had to earn his place. “I realised the opportunity I had and there was no way I was going to flush it down the toilet,” he says. “There were other kids in Europe in the same position as me, but I could see in their head they thought they’d already made it. I was switched on enough to see through that.”
On entering F1, Ricciardo admits he was “a little intimidated”, but after too many weekends of the same story — “if only”, “could’ve”, “should’ve” — he soon developed his signature racing style. He became assertive, poised. “I don’t like the feeling of leaving a racetrack with regrets,” he says. “I wasn’t doing myself justice if I didn’t put it all out there. When I went for a move or put my elbows out and stood my ground, it felt amazing. I knew deep down I was a fighter.” Soon enough, he was intimidating other drivers. “That was fun for me,” he says. His performance coach, Michael Italiano, says Ricciardo has “the gift of the feel of the car”. The two met at a boxing gym as pre- teens and started working together in 2018. “He talks to me all the time about how you feel the car in your hips; you feel where the limit is. That’s obviously a rare talent.”
Italiano says Ricciardo has a brain “like a sponge” that absorbs everything he’s told about his car and performance. Along with ambition and an uncanny ability to hold focus and stay calm amid chaos, it is what makes Ricciardo an exceptional competitor. ONZA WAS A welcome reprieve from a string of disappointing results for Ricciardo, not just this year but over the past few. Many had started to wonder what had happened to the speed and promise he’d shown in his younger years.
See more of Daniel Ricciardo in our behind-the-scenes video, and read how renowned stylist David Bradshaw styled Ricciardo on our cover shoot.
Racing for Red Bull, from 2014 to 2018, Ricciardo was on the podium frequently and scored seven wins, practically trademarking his celebratory champagne shoey. But while spending-wise Red Bull was considered to be among the “big three” teams (next to Mercedes and Ferrari), the car wasn’t competitive speed-wise, and the world title eluded Ricciardo as a result. His later years with the team were plagued by engine troubles and difficulties with his young teammate, Max Verstappen (who’s currently locked in a season-long battle for the top spot with Lewis Hamilton).
Those difficulties, it was speculated at the time, prompted Ricciardo’s dramatic move to Renault where, according to reports, he became the sport’s third-highest-paid driver with an estimated $US27 million annual salary (this was disputed by Ricciardo, who was “upset” by the stories). He stayed for just two years and two third-position podiums before making a three-year deal with McLaren, which was heading into the 2021 season on the up. With McLaren, he’s now racing with another notable youngster, the 22-year-old Lando Norris, who, at the time of writing, is well ahead of Ricciardo in the driver standings.
Ricciardo admits this isn’t what he’d expected of his career; by this point, he’d hoped to have won a world title. But there are so many variables beyond the skill of the driver that determine world titles in Formula 1, from budgets and engineering to race plans, pit stops and calamitous collisions. “Some days I really don’t like the sport I chose,” he says, reflecting on its volatility. The win ratio for most Formula 1 drivers — unless you’re, say, Hamilton — is deflatingly low. Ricciardo says his own is probably around one or two per cent. “The highs are really high, but the lows are too often,” he says.
Luckily, it’s in Ricciardo’s nature to embrace happiness as a measure of success. “I’m always reminding myself of the basics, making sure I’m still having fun doing it. That’s why I started racing,” he says. And while he still yearns for the world title, he says his perspective has shifted. “A few years ago, I would have said the world title was everything. Maybe it’s time in the sport or maturity, but I think to pin everything on a world title would be wrong,” he reflects. “I actually think I would regret that.”
Taking loss in stride doesn’t come naturally to Ricciardo. “I was definitely a sore loser growing up. I didn’t like that feeling,” he says, shifting slightly, as if being one-upped in his youth still niggles at him. Clearly, he has come a long way. Now it’s light-heartedness that defines his (substantial) public persona. He likes to entertain and leans into some Australian tropes that fascinate and endear him to international spectators — guzzling winner’s bubbly from his dirty racing boot is a prime example.
He is beloved by fans and sponsors alike. Endorsement deals with GoPro, Puma, Amazon and Beats by Dre play to his off-track enthusiasms, like his love of fashion and music. Passionate about the latter, he has invested in a London music venue with his friend the keyboardist Ben Lovett, of Mumford & Sons, hinting at the possibilities for life after Formula 1.
Google Ricciardo’s name and you’ll find mashups of his funniest media moments and most congenial on-track team radio shouts. There’s a video of him taking questions from a room of primary-schoolers, who grill him about his favourite film (“Dumb and Dumber” for his love of Jim Carrey), whether he likes pineapple on pizza (“I’ll eat it,” he says — just imagine the dismay of his ancestors) and what kind of fuel Formula 1 cars use (he doesn’t know). He has a YouTube series titled “No Brakes”, a string of POV-style episodes that follow Ricciardo as he hikes mountains, dirt-bikes and jams with the Australian indie rock group Gang of Youths.
You can see he loves performing for the camera. “I’m a show-off, he says. “I like standing out.” It’s part of why he got into Formula 1 in the first place. “It was a way for me to be different, do my own thing.” That desire is also reflected in his entrepreneurial pursuits, as in his merchandise line, which includes lounge shorts in baby blue and T-shirts emblazoned with the word “Enchanté”. The line’s promotional campaign features a decked-out Ricciardo chilling on a boat in the sparkling waters of the French Riviera. The launch of Ricciardo’s wine, DR3, made in collaboration with the South Australian producer St Hugo, kicked off with a promo video that has to be peak-Ricciardo, involving a fireplace and dignified burgundy blazer.
He might know how to perform, but Ricciardo is not inauthentic or arrogant. He always looks at ease, so comfortable in his own skin that he’s actually goofy, even a bit of a loser in the way that, nowadays, being a loser is cool. The McLaren Racing chief-executive, Zak Brown, says that Ricciardo is the “biggest personality in the sport”. He adds, in his smooth Californian tone: “He speaks his mind, regardless of the topic. He’s a very authentic and genuine person. You can have successful drivers that aren’t that exciting, and you can have successful drivers who are very exciting. Daniel falls into that very exciting category.”
Speaking to Ricciardo, it’s clear that his carefree attitude constitutes more than just a cover for his killer instinct — it’s part of how he sustains his sense of self and his success. That affable, unruffled exterior is just one setting of his always-on competition mode, his opposing seriousness another.
I was prepared for him to be overly humorous in our conversation, to use comedy as a way of evading my questions or to lighten the mood as he so often does on television. (In one interview, the journalist asks him what he plans to be after F1. He deadpans: “Probably a male stripper.”) But when we speak, he is thoughtful and considered. He describes the moment on race day when he switches between the two faces: from being the funny guy everyone loves to the F1 driver out to depose his enemies.
“Walking to my car, I can just be joking around or laughing, but once I get the helmet on, or put the headphones on to listen to music, something comes over me.” It would be remiss to underestimate his hunger to win, but Ricciardo tells me that’s not what motivates him. “I definitely believe I can,” he says of claiming the world title. “But it’s actually the competition, that’s why I get out of bed. The winning is the icing on the cake.”
His performance coach, Italiano, affirms this. “He truly, truly believes he’s the fastest in the world. I can see it when he says it,” he says ardently. “He wants to prove that he is the best in the world. I think that’s as strong a purpose as you’ll get in competitive sport.” A love of competition can get you further than a love of winning. The latter can be shallow and easily waver, while the former endures, each bump in the road adding fuel to the fire.
Still, one does wonder why people keep believing in Ricciardo’s exceptionalism despite his mixed results — why he keeps believing. Wins like that at Monza are the reason: when all the variables fall into place, he delivers the flawless performance the moment demands, like only champions can.
He loves the danger of Formula 1 racing, he says, the challenge and the pressure of it. The expectations that have been mounting since he was a teenager only make him stronger, and his strength appears to grow with every missed opportunity as much as every win. “He’s very brave,” says Brown. “He’s committed. He’s proven time and time again he’s a world champion-calibre driver. He’s struggled at times this year but he pushes hard through it. We just need to continue to work hard together to push ourselves further up the grid.”
Can he win? By all accounts, yes. Will he? The composure with which Ricciardo broaches questions about the future is convincing. “I’m now at a point where I’m just taking it race by race,” he says. “The older I get, I appreciate that this is not going to be around forever. I’m not going to be competing on a world stage for, probably not even the next 10 years.” That realisation makes him determined to “thrive in it and enjoy it. I know I’ll miss it when it’s gone.”
It’s not a faux sentiment. It’s the kind of acceptance that comes from true, unapologetic self-possession. His deep desire to win the title seems to be fused with an even deeper commitment to trusting in his process: an absolute belief that he can, will, if he just remains steadfast. When he crossed the finish line at Monza, Ricciardo’s voice came over the team radio: “Deep down I knew this was gonna come,” he said, his words at once ecstatic, composed and grateful. “Thanks for having my back. And for anyone who thought I left,” he added, presumably less for his team and more for the naysayers outside it, “I never left.”
Ricciardo is a candid guy, but I suspect his inner monologue — the one that steers him through life and competition — is as methodical as his actions on the track. In that sense, and in a pleasant kind of paradox, Ricciardo is both impenetrable and, ultimately, uncomplicated. “As a kid, I looked at drivers as these superheroes,” he says, recalling the days he spent trackside. “The sound, the smell. [That’s] what I fell in love with.” And here he is now, a kid from Perth who loves to race. A competitor who loves to win. And a person, just trying to enjoy the drive.
See more of Daniel Ricciardo in our behind-the-scenes video, and read how renowned stylist David Bradshaw styled Ricciardo on our cover shoot.
Grooming by Tomi Roppongi at Saint Luke. Set design by Andrew Tomlinson at Streeters. Creative production by Sunday Service. On set production by Noir Productions. Thanks to the team at McLaren and the McLaren Technology Centre.
