The 2022 summer break has certainly been a fascinating one so far, with Daniel Ricciardo’s situation at the McLaren F1 Team dominating the Formula 1 headlines.
The Australian who is contracted until the end of 2023, has demanded £17 million from the Woking-based side to leave the team.
This is so Alpine F1 Team reserve driver Oscar Piastri can line-up alongside Lando Norris for 2023, with the young Australian having signed a contract with the British team.
So, where does this all leave Ricciardo?
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Ex-F1 driver Ralf Schumacher believes leaving McLaren will spell the end of the Honey Badger’s career in F1, which began back in 2011 with HRT.
Ricciardo’s only viable option for next season would be to replace Fernando Alonso at Alpine, a seat that could see the Aussie battling in the top eight.
Schumacher isn’t sure who Alpine could take, with the team having planned for Piastri to replace Alonso.
“And then there is the question of Daniel Ricciardo,” Schumacher told Sky Germany.
“Personally, I can’t imagine him getting another chance in Formula 1.
“But I wouldn’t know who Alpine should take at the moment.”
Whilst the summer break has been hectic for McLaren and Alpine, for the Mercedes F1 Team it’s been fairly easy going.
The Silver Arrows have improved dramatically as of late, with Sir Lewis Hamilton having finished on the podium at the last five races.
The only thing missing for Mercedes this season is a race victory, something they’ve achieved every year since 2012.
Should they claim a race victory in the second half of the season, then it may give the German team some consolidation for what has been an overall disappointing year.
2021 is clearly still very much in the mind of the third-placed team, with team principal Toto Wolff admitting that he still thinks about the season finale “every day”.
The 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix saw Hamilton “cheated” out of winning an unprecedented eighth World Championship, after race director at the time Michael Masi failed to follow the rule book.
Had the rules been followed, then Hamilton would’ve won the title, and not Max Verstappen.
Wolff revealed that he is at “peace” with Verstappen claiming the title, but that it’s the unfairness of the circumstances that keeps him thinking about it.
“I think about it every day,” Wolff told Motorsport.com.
“But I have my peace with Max winning the championship, because he’s a deserving champion.
“How it panned out, I think I have values around fairness, and especially sporting fairness. This is what provides my fundamental love for the sport.
“And then that was kicked with the feet on that particular day.”
Whilst the Drivers’ Championship wasn’t to be for Hamilton, the team still managed to defend their Constructors’ Championship for an unprecedented eighth time.
The Mercedes boss has incredibly revealed what is at the heart of the side’s success, and that it actually comes from studying “great teams” who became “complacent” when enjoying a run at the top.
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“I studied why great teams were not able to repeat great title [runs],” Wolff told the Financial Times.
“No sports team in any sport has ever won eight consecutive world championship titles, and there are many reasons for that, and what is at the core is the human.
“The human gets complacent. You are not energised in the same way you were before. You are maybe not as ambitious.”