It has been a turbulent year for Daniel Ricciardo, who is set to be replaced at McLaren for 2023 by Oscar Piastri.
The Australian has struggled to find his peak performance over the past two years, being whitewashed by his teammate Lando Norris in the drivers’ championship.
It is understood that the 33-year-old rejected the chance to speak to Haas about a 2023 race seat, instead opting to take up a reserve driver role at either Mercedes or Red Bull in the hope that a seat opens up at a top team for 2024.
Ricciardo was on a high following his storming performance at the Mexican Grand Prix, where he finished in seventh after an aggressive drive, even overcoming a ten second penalty, however his reputation has now taken a hit following a controversial podcast appearance.
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The eight-time race winner appeared on the ‘Your Mom’s House’ podcast with hosts Tom Segura and Christina Pazitzky and engaged in some controversial conversation, with the having already discussed his future plans earlier on in the episode.
“Where do the chicks go craziest?” This was one of the questions that Ricciardo was asked as the conversation began to swing towards Ricciardo’s apparent ability to attract women because of his lifestyle.
The comments made by both male and female hosts were slammed on social media as extremely misogynistic and sexist, with Ricciardo being caught up in the social media drama.
It is worth noting that Ricciardo refused to answer the majority of the questions about this topic, looking visibly uncomfortable and pretending to receive a phone call as a way of diverting the question, however he did laugh and seem amused by the general topic of conversation.
“Misogyny coming from a woman is still misogyny,” wrote one Twitter user, suggesting that just because the female host was comfortable joking about women in this manner, does not make it acceptable.
Ricciardo has been criticised for his decision making when deciding where he should make appearances, with his choice of podcasts to being called into question.
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“Ricciardo generally has terrible judgement with podcasts, he’s been on Barstool [podcast] repeatedly but this is just incredibly disappointing; sexist, playing into (weird) stereotypes of eastern Europe,” continued the Tweet.
Social media users noted that Ricciardo was not particularly involved in the sexist and stereotyping, however, they have slammed the Australian for who he chooses to get himself involved with, claiming that incidents like this are become all too common.
Others also called on Mercedes not to sign him as their reserve driver for 2023 following the incident.
Ricciardo is yet to comment on the controversy and it remains to be seen how he will address the public outrage.