Daniel Ricciardo has been hailed for having the “winning recipe” by American actor and comedian Will Arnett, whilst talking on his F1 podcast Fast & Loose.
The Aussie faced an unfortunate end to the Italian Grand Prix last weekend, after retiring with just a handful of laps remaining.
Whilst running in seventh, in what would’ve been one of the 33-year-old’s best results of the season, the Australian suffered from a suspected oil leak.
The Honey Badger on Lap 47/53 pulled off the circuit between the two Lesmos, bringing a truly gutting end to what had been a strong race for the outgoing McLaren driver.
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The outcome of the race at the ‘Temple of Speed’ seemingly summed up his 2022 campaign, sad.
Ricciardo has fallen into the shadow of Lando Norris, with the Australian’s former victory fighting self seemingly a million miles away.
Despite the poor season, Arnett heaped praise onto Ricciardo, who he labelled as having the “winning attitude” after “never crying” following a poor result or media negativity.
“He’s got that winning attitude… it’s never ‘poor me’ and it’s never crying,” said the American on his F1 podcast.
“There are the kind of guys, you know, in football terms, get tackled down near their ankles and they go to the ground and hold their face, but Danny doesn’t have that… he’s kind of like ‘that’s the way it goes, I didn’t have a great thing, I crapped out and I’m gonna get up and dust off’ and that’s a winning recipe no matter what he does.”
With 2021 F2 World Champion Oscar Piastri having been announced as Ricciardo’s replacement, the Honey Badger is looking increasingly likely to have to take a sabbatical from the championship next season, with no available seats looking likely to be Ricciardo’s for 2023.
Ricciardo was linked to Alpine; however, Mick Schumacher’s seat at Haas now looks set to be the Aussie’s only hope should he wish to feature in 2023.
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Ricciardo did hold talks with Haas boss Guenther Steiner prior to the Hungarian Grand Prix, but Steiner has supposedly spoken to a number of drivers.
“I’ve talked to most of the potential drivers, which is my job,” said Steiner at Monza last weekend.
“There’s nothing concrete yet, but we only want to take the smallest risks for the development of the team. You can take a big risk which is great when it works, but it’s bad when it doesn’t.”