This weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix is the first of 12 grands prix in which Daniel Ricciardo will attempt to prove he’s still deserving of a race-winning car.

He’ll undertake this half-season audition in an AlphaTauri he’s never driven before and which is last in the constructors standings.

The challenge will be dialled up by Yuki Tsunoda, his new teammate, who’s in career-killing form after dispatching Nyck de Vries in just 10 races.

But on Ricciardo’s side is a wealth of experience.

He’s collected 15 podium trophies from the upcoming 11 established races — excluding the brand-new Las Vegas Grand Prix — including three famous victories, not least of which was that Italian Grand Prix win two years ago.

Such lofty results are off the table without the most unusual of circumstances this year, but if the goal is simply to steal some points, there’s plenty in Ricciardo’s history to suggest the hunt will be on.

11. HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX

Best finish: 1st (2014)

Podiums: 3 (2014, 2015, 2016)

Highest grid spot: 3rd (2016)

Ricciardo’s second victory in Hungary was all action in a chaotic race interrupted several times by the safety car.

Red Bull Racing used the disruption to put Ricciardo on an aggressive three-stop strategy despite him having taken an early lead. It put him on fresher tyres in the final stint but required him to make several passes to win the race.

With 15 laps to go he was running third behind Lewis Hamilton. They diced until, with four laps to go, the Aussie launched a sweet move around the Briton’s outside at turn 2.

On the following tour he dived down leader Fernando Alonso’s inside at the first turn to snatch victory.

“Man, did he have some confidence on that brake pedal!” Martin Brundle exclaimed in commentary about what’s since become Ricciardo’s trademark late-braking style.

“Winning this today, it honestly feels as good as the first,” Ricciardo said. “To have to pass guys again to win the race … makes it a lot more satisfying, knowing that we did have a bit of a fight on our hands.

“In this environment now I feel I am a different driver and in a way a different person, a different sportsman, than I was last year.

“I’ve got a lot more belief in myself, and it’s cool. I definitely feel like I belong here now and I’ve got confidence … and I think that confidence is showing.”

12. BELGIAN GRAND PRIX

Best finish: 1st (2014)

Podiums: 3 (2014, 2016, 2017)

Highest grid spot: 4th (2020, 2021)

Ricciardo’s arrival as a frontrunning force in 2014 continued apace with a second consecutive victory in Belgium, where he capitalised on contact between the leading Mercedes drivers to seize the lead.

Ricciardo had started fifth but made quick work of Alonso to put himself behind teammate Sebastian Vettel, who then made a mistake under pressure, promoting the Aussie to third.

Third became the lead when Nico Rosberg tagged Hamilton’s rear-left tyre. The Briton retired with damage, while the German continued after repairs with an aggressive strategy that put him on track to catch Ricciardo in the final laps with a fresh set of soft tyres.

But despite the disadvantage of older rubber, the Aussie managed his pace to perfection to keep Rosberg just at arm’s length to the flag.

“It feels a bit surreal, but another win is very cool,” Ricciardo said. “It was difficult staying out at the end of the race. When you’re the leader as well you always feel like you’re the most vulnerable when it comes to a pit stop or not.

“There’s been a lot of good things about the win today. Obviously the last two came from a more aggressive style of race, but today was more calculated, and it was nice to win under different circumstances.”

13. DUTCH GRAND PRIX

Best finish: 11th (2021)

Podiums: 0

Highest grid spot: 10th (2021)

Ricciardo’s first race at Zandvoort was in his troubled first McLaren season. He rose from 10th to ninth off the line, but an early pit stop to try to move forward left him vulnerable to teammate Lando Norris late, which eventually dropped him out of the points.

“Obviously the team thought of that strategy to get me and Lando both up in the points, but I think it hurt our race in the end,” he wrote on his website. “They tried to make it work, but it didn’t, so my race was a bit compromised after that.”

The next race, however, more than made up for the disappointment.

14. ITALIAN GRAND PRIX

Best finish: 1st (2021)

Podiums: 1 (2021)

Highest grid spot: 2nd (2021)

Daniel Ricciardo is the only driver to have won a race for McLaren in more than a decade, having broken an eight-year drought on that famous afternoon in Monza with a low-downforce car perfectly suited to the temple of speed.

He qualified fifth, jumped Norris and Hamilton to third in the Saturday sprint and was promoted to the front row alongside Max Verstappen when sprint winner Valtteri Bottas served a power unit penalty.

A sizzling start got him into the lead on the first lap, which he successfully defended ahead of his former teammate until the first pit stops.

Verstappen and Hamilton’s later stops brought the title rivals together in a race-ending crash, setting up a grandstand finish between Ricciardo, Norris and the hard-charging Bottas, who had quicker tyres than the leading pair.

But the Aussie managed his pace perfectly to ensure McLaren’s first — and still only — one-two finish since 2010.

And for those who thought he was gifted victory by team orders, he used his badly worn tyres to set the fastest lap of the race on the final tour, putting a full stop on a genuinely competitive weekend.

“I swear, when I had the lead, nothing was going to take it away from me,” Ricciardo wrote on his website.

“It’s been over three years (since my last win), and no-one would have predicted this to happen, particularly after the first half of this year and how things have gone for me.

“As bad as things have been at stages for me this year, I knew deep within myself that this was possible — and knowing how much I wanted it, I never doubted myself, even if my confidence has been pretty low at times.

“Some of the speed bumps along the way only make days like this so much sweeter.”

15. SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX

Best finish: 2nd (2015, 2016, 2017)

Podiums: 4 (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017)

Highest grid spot: 2nd (2015, 2016)

The 2016 Singapore Grand Prix was pivotal to Rosberg’s championship triumph, being a rare weekend at which the German had a comfortable, decisive advantage over teammate Hamilton from beginning to end.

But Ricciardo came achingly close to demoting Rosberg to what would’ve been a ruinous second place — it would’ve cost him seven points in a year he won the title by only five.

Ricciardo was in the middle of a golden run of form in what was arguably his career-best season. He’d qualified second behind Rosberg, splitting the two Mercedes drivers, and took up a punchy three-stop strategy to end the race with much fresher rubber.

Ricciardo closed to with 0.488 seconds, but Rosberg was perfect in his race management to put 10 points on Hamilton and assume a title lead he’d never relinquish.

16. JAPANESE GRAND PRIX

Best finish: 3rd (2017)

Podiums: 1 (2017)

Highest grid spot: 3rd (2017)

Despite Suzuka being a Red Bull Racing favourite, it’s been a bogey track for Ricciardo, who’s scored points only five times in his entire F1 career at the famed Japanese circuit. It’s also the scene of his only career disqualification — for a Renault technical breach in 2019.

His sole podium year could’ve offered more but for circumstance. He was the best qualifier behind title contenders Hamilton and Vettel but lost out on a chaotic first lap that handed the initiative to teammate Verstappen, who ran Hamilton close for victory after a late restart.

Ricciardo got stuck behind Esteban Ocon early, leaving a distant third the most he could manage.

17. QATAR GRAND PRIX

Best finish: 12th (2021)

Podiums: 0

Highest grid spot: 14th (2021)

The sport’s first visit to Qatar was disappointing for Ricciardo. First-lap chaos dropped him to 16th, after which a fuel miscalculation forced him to aggressively conserve for most of the rest of the race. The knock-on effect was cold tyres and cold brakes, which left him way off the pace and killed any chance of recovery.

“A very painful race,” Ricciardo wrote on his website. “We were a passenger for 75 per cent of it.”

It won’t be hard to have a more enjoyable evening in Losail this year.

18. UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX

Best finish: 3rd (2014, 2016)

Podiums: 2 (2014, 2016)

Highest grid spot: 3rd (2015, 2016)

Since his Ricciardo run-in at the 2016 Singapore Grand Prix, Rosberg had earnt enough points on Hamilton to finish second for the rest of the season without surrendering the title lead.

Straight off the line Ricciardo pipped the German for second and threatened to prise back open the championship battle.

It was only a late virtual safety car — ironically called for teammate Verstappen — that saved Rosberg, who made a free pit stop that promoted him back to second.

Despite his affinity for all things Austin, Ricciardo has never been close to mounting the top step — though he missed out on a potentially golden chance in 2018, when he retired from fourth with an electrical problem after eight laps. Verstappen charged from 18th to finish runner-up just 1.2 seconds behind victor Kimi Raikkonen.

19. MEXICO CITY GRAND PRIX

Best finish: 3rd (2016)

Podiums: 1 (2016)

Highest grid spot: 1st (2018)

The 2018 Mexican Grand Prix was the best and worst of Ricciardo’s Red Bull Racing tenure in one weekend.

He took a superb pole position just 0.026 seconds ahead of Verstappen in a season the balance of power was shifting towards the Dutchman.

But a retirement with a hydraulics failure took him out of the race. It was his sixth DNF in 11 races, a failure rate of 55 per cent, and his eighth for the season.

“I don’t think ‘frustration’ is the word anymore,” Ricciardo said after the race. “Everything feels hopeless.

“You know, honestly, now where I am, I don’t see the point of coming on Sunday, I don’t see the point of doing the next two races.

“I’m not superstitious or any of this bullshit, but the car’s cursed. I don’t have any more words.”

20. SAO PAULO GRAND PRIX

Best finish: 4th (2018)

Podiums: 0

Highest grid spot: 6th (2016)

Interlagos is another of Ricciardo’s bogey circuits, having got within a sniff of the podium only once, in 2018. It was a strong drive from a penalised 11th on the grid to get to within 0.429 seconds of some champagne, but the hunt goes on.

21. LAS VEGAS GRAND PRIX

Best finish: NA

Podiums: NA

Highest grid spot: NA

“I was going to retire. I will not no more!”

That was Ricciardo’s tongue-in-cheek reaction last year to the news Las Vegas will join the calendar in 2023.

Oddly prescient.

22. ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX

Best finish: 4th (2014, 2018)

Podiums: 0

Highest grid spot: 3rd (2016)

Between 2014 and 2019 Red Bull Racing scored a grand total of two podiums in Abu Dhabi, which has been a Mercedes fortress for most of the turbo-hybrid era. Verstappen broke the curse in 2020, which precipitated his famous — or infamous — 2021 victory and championship.

A podium chance was on in 2018, but Verstappen got the undercut on Ricciardo to secure third in the Australian’s final race for Red Bull Racing — so far, anyway.