Upon his return to the Formula One grid for the 2023 season, Daniel Ricciardo emphasised that racing is \u201cthe priority\u201d moving forward. After spending the majority of last year on the sidelines after leaving McLaren and rejoining Red Bull as a third driver, Ricciardo was called in at AlphaTauri mid-season to replace the faltering Nyck de Vries.<\/p>\n
It was a welcome return to the hot seat for the Australian, whose signature grin and cheerful attitude have earned him a fan favourite over the years, whether strolling across the paddock, during media duties, or on chat programmes around the world. But with his comeback developing, Ricciardo was asked about the importance of this time being seen as purely a racing driver and less of an entertainer \u2013 prompting the Australian to outline a revised approach.<\/p>\n
However, as his recovery progressed, Ricciardo was challenged about the necessity of being recognised as a racing driver rather than an entertainer, forcing the Australian to describe a fresh strategy. \u201cI\u2019ve definitely cut back on a lot of things, let\u2019s say, outside of racing, for sure. I still have some other interests outside of the sport, which I\u2019m involved in, and I enjoy, but I\u2019ve minimised a lot,\u201d Ricciardo was quoted as saying by Formula 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really just trying to, I think, make sure that\u2026 I think it always has been, but to obviously make the racing the priority. With the calendar now and the schedule, if I\u2019ve got some time off, then I\u2019m either in the gym or I\u2019m putting my feet up and recovering for the next race,\u201d he added. \u201cI think just kind of prioritising a few things outside of this job. Especially the way the sport\u2019s growing, it\u2019s easy to get a little bit \u2013 I don\u2019t even want to say lost \u2013 but there\u2019s just so much going,\u201d the eight-time Grand Prix winner continued.<\/p>\n
Ricciardo will remain with AlphaTauri alongside Yuki Tsunoda for the 2024 season, having gained six points from seven Grands Prix last year despite an accident that left him with wrist injuries and forced him to miss five races.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so many things that you can be doing. It\u2019s all really exciting and really fun, and I am\u2026 I love that stuff, of course, because it\u2019s obviously a new experience and it\u2019s great. But I think having the time off for the start of the year, I realised that I was probably just doing too much sometimes and probably even just not prioritising myself in terms of my body and my recovery and all that. So, in a long way of saying it, just trying to focus on that,\u201d Ricciardo said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Upon his return to the Formula One grid for the 2023 season, Daniel Ricciardo emphasised that racing is \u201cthe priority\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":23876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[7209,7211,7207,7206,7208,2807,7210,7212],"class_list":["post-23873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-2024-season","tag-alphatauri","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1","tag-formula-one-grid","tag-grand-prix","tag-mclaren","tag-racing-schedule"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}