Ricciardo ‘mojo’ missing, says world champion

Eight-time Grand Prix winner Daniel Ricciardo needs to find his ‘mojo’ if he has any hope of a top seat – or even staying in Formula One – according to 1996 world champion Damon Hill.

Ricciardo heads into this weekend’s 2024 Australia Formula 1 Grand Prix, where Hill will be part of the Sky Sports broadcast team, after a dismal start to the season.

In the first two races, he was outperformed by his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, with performances between drivers in the same car the most common way to assess results.

This has included Ricciardo finishing sixteenth in the previous race at Saudi Arabia, where he also suffered the indignation of spinning out while being lapped by the Red Bull Racing entry of Sergio Perez.

Ricciardo had been widely tipped to replace Perez at Red Bull Racing if the Mexican driver underperforms alongside world champion team-mate Max Verstappen.

Yet it’s the Australian whose seat in an F1 team now looks under threat, sitting 17th of 20 drivers in the points standings ahead of the Melbourne event.

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“I mean, the mojo seems to be missing a little bit,” Hill told Drive at the 2024 Adelaide Motorsport Festival.

When asked if he thought Riccardo was no longer a chance to replace Perez, given his lacklustre 2024 form so far, Hill said: “I think it's too early to say.

“I think that he's had a bit of a bad race in Saudi Arabia, which, I'm not sure what the reasons for that were, but there's going to be a lot of competition if there is a space [at Red Bull Racing].”

“Checo’s [Perez] doing quite a good job to hang on to what he's got.”

After being dropped by McLaren at the end of 2022 – replaced by Australian driver Oscar Piastri – Riccardo returned to the F1 grid for the Hungarian Grand Prix in July 2023, replacing rookie Nyck de Vries.

Only two races into his comeback, Ricciardo crashed in practice for the Dutch Grand Prix, sidelining him for the following four Grands Prix in a disrupted return to the sport.

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“It's not easy to have an interrupted season,” said Hill when looking at Ricciardo’s form.

“He's had time out from F1, then he’s come back and he's got a broken wrist, so that progress is difficult for him – for us – to see exactly what he has to offer.

“But I wouldn’t discount him – you don't have that kind of form and then it just disappears overnight.”

Fans will be able to get up close with Ricciardo and the rest of the F1 drivers at the Melbourne Walk event, between 8:30am and 11:30am at the Albert Park track on Saturday 23 March 2024.