The prospect of the 2023 Formula 1 grid not featuring Daniel Ricciardo is difficult to fathom.
Overnight the Australian driver confirmed he was leaving McLaren at the end of the season a year early than his contract runs.
The 33-year-old, who joined in 2021, said he will leave “proud of the effort and work I gave McLaren.”
Ricciardo has eight career wins, including one for McLaren last year -- the Italian Grand Prix.
He has been largely played second fiddle to team-mate Lando Norris. The English driver has 76 points compared to Ricciardo’s 19.
But while his time in papaya is coming to an end, his time in the F1 almost certainly isn’t.
Teams have already been busy positioning themselves for a play at Ricciardo after it emerged McLaren was lining up fellow Aussie Oscar Piastri to replace him.
As many as four rival constructors have sounded out Ricciardo, per ESPN, in the weeks leading up to McLaren reportedly issuing him its intention to break his contract.
Deducing which teams ought to be a simple case of arithmetic.
Before Fernando Alonso’s bombshell move there were six teams with possible vacancies: Alpine, Alfa Romeo, Haas, AlphaTauri, Aston Martin and Williams.
Alpine assumed it wouldn’t be going to market given it thought it had Piastri on the books as a fallback for Alonso, reducing the list to five.
AlphaTauri is also moving closer to re-signing Yuki Tsunoda, who Franz Tost wants to give a third season to establish himself. Anyway, signing 33-year-old Ricciardo also doesn’t click with what’s supposed to be Red Bull’s development team. Four teams remaining.
Aston Martin has also removed itself from the list, but with Alpine seemingly sure to need new blood, the group possible suitors is stable at four, including Haas, Alfa Romeo and Williams.
So which is most likely to be seriously pitching for Ricciardo’s services, and which has the best chance of attracting his attention.
ALPINE: THE CLEAR FRONTRUNNER
Alpine is unlikely to have been among the teams to have reached out to Ricciardo before the Hungarian Grand Prix given it was certain to the point of complacency that Alonso would re-sign, and it assumed in the unlikely event the Spaniard left, Oscar Piastri would be aligned to replace him.
But you can guarantee that the French team has reached out in the week since the driver market kicked into gear, and it’s the obvious frontrunner for Ricciardo’s services.
Why it makes sense
Alpine is the highest placed team in the constructors standings with an availability — in fact it’s a place ahead of McLaren, occupying fourth with a four-point margin, so it would represent a step forwards on the grid, even if that step would be almost imperceptibly small.
The team is also on a hiring spree to match the workforce size of the frontrunners, and having undertaken some capital works to upgrade its factory, it’s well placed to maximise its budget cap allocation in the coming seasons.
Alpine also has a weak bargaining hand given it’s now 35 races deep into a 100-race plan to be a regular podium-getter. Esteban Ocon is credible enough but really the team needs a high-calibre spearhead, and there’s no-one on the market who comes close to Ricciardo’s potential or brand value.
And then there’s a certain unquantifiable appeal for both sides — one that neither would admit to, although stranger things have happened — that they’d be united by a common adversary. Both would surely be keen to defeat McLaren in a straight fight, and they’re each other’s best chance of doing so.
Why it doesn’t
The only thing that would prevent Ricciardo and Alpine renewing the relationship that ended in 2020 is pride. Ricciardo would be returning to a team he’d previously ditched, and Alpine would be taking back a driver who decided to walk out after only a year of racing.
But it’s debatable that this would be a strong disincentive to unite.
For one, Alpine has been through a management clean-out since Ricciardo left, meaning there could be only so much bad blood to influence decision-making.
Team principal Otmar Szafnauer was even receptive to Ricciardo as a possible re-hire as early as last week, when he was still trying to project an air of confidence about keeping Piastri.
“I mean, if you look at Fernando, for example, he comes and goes, and I think that happens to other drivers too,” he said, per Autosport. “I don‘t think that’s an issue [with Ricciardo] at all.”
As for Ricciardo, he’s proved during his McLaren tenure that he isn’t afraid about claiming responsibility for his actions. He’s been upfront about his underperformance, and returning to Alpine, where he had one of the best seasons of his career in 2020, would just be an extension of that.
Alpine may not have been among the early suitors of Ricciardo’s services, but it’s certainly at the head of the pack.
HAAS: TRYING ITS LUCK
Haas is the next team in the constructors standings without an obvious solution to its driver line-up if it parts ways with Mick Schumacher, whether on its own motion or because the German switches teams given the pathway to Ferrari is closed for the foreseeable future.
ESPN revealed this week team principal Guenther Steiner contacted Ricciardo before the mid-season break.
Why it makes sense
Daniel Ricciardo is box office in the United States partly thanks to Drive to Survive, partly thanks to his love for the US and partly thanks to his personal team’s efforts to get his personality out there.
For a Haas team that’s on the up but in need of some brand cut-through, Ricciardo would be a great get — and maybe even enough to convince Gene Haas to increase his commitment to funding the team, at least for purposes of snagging a star driver.
Ricciardo would also enjoy the relaxed and apolitical atmosphere at the midfield team, perhaps enough to sway a decision.
Why it doesn’t
While the morass of the midfield is a bit of a minefield in terms of their prospects in the next few years — Alonso clearly doesn’t think ninth-placed Aston Martin has dimmer prospects than fourth-placed Alpine — Haas has been particularly inconsistent this season. It would be a difficult sell to Ricciardo to take a punt on things moving forwards rather than backwards.
Haas might also question whether it’s ready for a driver of Ricciardo’s ambition at this stage of its rebuild.
There’s also a lack of clarity around whether Ferrari has final say over Haas’s second seat as part of its technical agreement with the team, which would presumably rule Ricciardo out of the running.
WILLIAMS: WITHOUT AN OBVIOUS SUCCESSOR
Williams was set to be a major player in the driver market when it was tied to Alpine’s decision-making around Oscar Piastri and Fernando Alonso, but that power was stripped from Grove when both drivers sensationally abandoned the French team.
It’s also left Williams without an obvious candidate for its second seat, currently occupied by Nicholas Latifi, who’s likely to be shown the door at the end of the year.
Why it makes sense
Williams has fielded mostly rookies for the last five seasons, with the only exceptions being Robert Kubica in 2019, who was making his comeback an eight-year injury hiatus, and Alex Albon, who had two disrupted years in the Red Bull system before sitting out last year.
It means the team is without a proven, established bar with which to measure its car’s ultimate performance. Ricciardo would give the team a chance to know just how much more might be in the car or whether what we’re seeing today is the best the team’s got.
If Ricciardo were desperate to continue his Formula 1 career but unable to secure a contract at a better placed team, Williams would surely be happy to accept him.
Why it doesn’t
Much like Haas, Williams may not feel ready for a heavy hitter of Ricciardo’s stature. It’s also seriously debatable whether Daniel, with a point to prove about his last 18 months and eager to restore his reputation, would see value in a contract that would struggle guarantee him more than lower midfield levels of performance.
Alfa Romeo has been one of the sport’s great improvers this year and is on track for the best points haul of its independent history. It also has Zhou Guanyu out of contract this season, and though the Chinese rookie has acquitted himself well, the team is yet to re-sign him.
Why it makes sense
The Sauber-run Alfa Romeo team’s biggest card is that it’s reportedly in negotiations to be bought by Audi. Sauber would then become the German marque’s works constructor, complete with a power unit program.
If the best route to a championship is to race for a fully fledged manufacturer, getting in on the ground floor before Audi potentially buys in — and presumably spends big to accelerate progress where it can — might be the best shortcut to the front.
Why it doesn’t
Valtteri Bottas’s strong performances and long-term contract mean Alfa Romeo doesn’t need a team leader, no matter your opinion of the abilities of the Finn relative to the Australian.
Further, the team has an eye to promoting its development driver, Théo Pourchaire, from Formula 2. Pourchaire is only 21 points off the title lead, and if he wins the series this year, he won’t be able to enter again — and even if he missed out, another strong campaign would likely be enough to get him into F1 by 2024.
Wedging Ricciardo into Zhou Guanyu’s seat makes no sense when it’s already earmarked for one of Sauber’s own drivers.
