After well over a decade of gracing the grid with his presence, Daniel Ricciardo’s time in F1 is up. Coming in with a swagger at a time when the sport was pushing for an austere and business-like appearance, Ricciardo pushed the envelope on showing executives and press officers that a driver’s character should be leaned into instead of cowered away from. He was also ridiculously quick, aligning himself alongside (and often outperforming) undisputed masters of F1 such as Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.

Despite this, the most his F1 exit has seemed to have garnered was a round of applause from his garage and some teary-eyed interviews. The season is not even over and the F1 circus is abandoning him like how one might discard an empty Coke can.

Now of course, Ricciardo signed his contract certainly knowing RB had the power to pull him from F1 at a moment of their choosing. In fact, such actions have almost now become ordinary in F1. Not long ago, the decision to axe a driver mid-season would have caused seismic outrage, confusion, shock and disbelief. In just a short span, however, we have now seen swaps such as Kvyat/Verstappen, Gasly/Albon, Seargant/Colapinto, De Vries/Ricciardo and now Ricciardo/Lawson.

Is driver investment to be an act of the past? Furthermore, is it right that drivers are even allowed to be dropped mid-season?

I guess so. But the relationship between a driver and his team has changed exponentially in F1 since Toro Rosso’s Kvyat/Verstappen swap in 2016 to a direction that I am not a fan of. The actions of teams lately seem to imply that drivers are seen as tools that can quickly and easily be swapped in and out with one another. Does one not fit perfectly? Try another! That one doesn’t work? Just keep flicking through the roster. A great example of the faliure of this model is with Nyck De Vries.

In 2020/2021, De Vries was crowned Formula E World Champion. Just a year prior, he won the 6 Hours of Fuji in the LMP2 class. Alongside a long list of accolades, it was pretty obvious that he’d do great things in F1. But he didn’t – he was removed after ten races.

The fact that such a proven and time-tested driver could be tossed aside so quickly shows those at the top of racing are no longer treasured, taken care of and developed by their team. Times of working with one-another may be on its way out, dying when McLaren paid to terminate Ricciardo’s contract a year early. Instead, teams can simply reshuffle the deck and pull out a new driver. De Vries’ CV features nothing but upticks before and after his time in F1. God, I still remember watching him when I was nine, in the McLaren ‘Tooned’ animation in 2013.

Although it was the easy option to remove Nyck (and now Ricciardo), it was almost certainly not the best one. So – should teams be allowed to discard talent like they have been lately? Or would it be better for everyone if they just stuck with their talent?

There are issues with both models. If you let a driver outstay their welcome, you are wasting precious time when someone else could be doing a better job. Furthermore, you may just be investing millions into someone you know you won’t have a future with. But on the other hand, the threat of being removed before the season is even up not only piles on more pressure to perform (which can in itself cause performance issues), but it also encourages teams to play F1 Tinder instead of making an effort to build a bond with their drivers to maximise every drop of performance possible. A balance between two extremes must be carefully engineered. The thing is that right now, teams are swaying very heavily to the latter.

As a result, this current direction is nothing but damaging the performance of teams as well as ruining the dreams of clearly capable drivers, in the name of convenience and doing things the easy way instead of the correct way.

Now granted, Ricciardo’s situation is very different to this. He has faced hardship ever since stepping into the McLaren garage in 2021. But even then, the fact that Red Bull/Racing Bulls (silly name by the way) do not even have the respect to let him finish a season in a car that can barely score points anyway is not only disrespectful to the part he has played in Red Bull over the years, but is also a disheartening way to end the career of a very fast driver.

So – do you think teams should continue to be able to swap drivers in and out like a game of driver roulette? Or should they have more of a focus on the long-term, but take the risk that the marriage may just not work out? Let me know.