Rewind: Ricciardo's podium, but not a podium
Monday, 27 March 2023
The Australian was eventually disqualified from the race.
Daniel Ricciardo's Formula 1® career statistics feature 32 podium finishes and eight victories that regularly shared a sense for the dramatic. But for all of that success over a 232-race tenure, it's a podium that wasn't that remains one of the 33-year-old's fondest memories.
No Australian has – officially, at least – stood on the Albert Park podium in 25 races. However, the Australian Grand Prix of 2014 still holds a special place in the Perth product's heart, more for what it signified and subsequently sparked than the emotional rollercoaster it was at the time.
Why was Australia 2014 so significant? Let's recap. Ricciardo had raced in F1® for two-and-a-half years by then but faced real expectations for the first time. Promoted to Red Bull Racing after plying his trade with sister squad Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2012-13, the stakes were high. A new engine formula – and Red Bull's dire pre-season testing reliability – had most wondering whether Ricciardo would even finish his home race, let alone finish it ahead of his teammate, the reigning and four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel. Taking over from retired compatriot Mark Webber, Ricciardo's task was as tall as they get.
Perhaps it was the novelty of driving for a top team; perhaps it was those muted expectations; perhaps it was inspiration from racing at home; whatever the recipe, Ricciardo came of age in Melbourne in 2014. Qualifying a career-best second in a deluge while splitting Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg was one thing. But that was only a Saturday entrée to Sunday's main course.
Reliability gremlins put paid to Hamilton's – and Vettel's – chances within three laps on race day, and while Rosberg bolted out front, Ricciardo drove with the aplomb of a seasoned veteran, spending all 57 laps in the podium places after doing so for just 11 laps in his previous 50 Grands Prix. Second, at the start became second at the finish, and Ricciardo's signature grin spanned new widths as he basked in the adulation from a delirious crowd from the podium.
Hours later, though, the balloon burst: Red Bull faced investigation for Ricciardo's car breaching the sport's fuel-flow regulations, and Ricciardo drove back to his city hotel bracing for the bad news. It eventually came as midnight loomed; he'd been disqualified, and a maiden F1® podium would have to wait.
It was a let-down that would crush most drivers, but Ricciardo is keen to accentuate the positives.
"I've won races since and all of that, but that day, second place at home – it was just crazy," he reflects.
"Of all the podiums to step onto … when I walked out there, my mind was racing and it was all a bit overwhelming. That noise, the people … when they were playing the national anthem for (Nico) Rosberg, I just kept scanning my eyes from one side of the crowd to the other."
If Ricciardo looked like someone who was "trying to take it all in", as he says, there's a reason.
"That view of the sea of people in Albert Park, I'd actually envisaged that," he says.
"It was the picture I had in my mind of what that would have looked like if one day I got to stand on the podium at my home race.
"To actually experience something that seems like it would be unachievable, that's almost like some sort of dream come true … it felt like something I'd seen before, but better."
Fortunately for Ricciardo, he didn't have to wait long for that first 'proper' podium – that came in round five in Spain when he finished third – and two races later in Canada, Ricciardo won for the first time. Further wins came that season in Hungary and Belgium, and by the end of 2014, Ricciardo was entrenched as the sport's next big thing.
It's now nine years since the most memorable non-podium in Melbourne's F1® history, but Ricciardo still "very vividly" remembers the day he truly arrived.
"I'd got to that point in my head, mentally, where I was 'I do belong here, I can do this with a top team, I can go up against Seb'," he says.
"The last corner of the last lap, through the right-hander, everyone (in the crowd) was up … it was cool. I loved that whole feeling."
