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Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton raced against each other in Formula 1 for 14 seasons before the Australian was dropped by RB in 2024.
In that time, the pair only shared the front row of the grid twice – at the Australian and Chinese Grand Prix in 2014 – but Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton were on the podium alongside each other on 22 occasions.
Ricciardo’s peak came during his time at Red Bull, and he remains the only driver to finish ahead of Max Verstappen in the drivers’ championship when the pair were teammates.
However, the Australian decided to leave Red Bull at the end of the 2018 campaign, and after a spell at Renault, he ended up at McLaren.
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Ricciardo found himself struggling against Lando Norris, and while McLaren’s decision to hire Oscar Piastri to replace his fellow countryman has been criticised, it ultimately has improved the team.
Racing driver and pundit Alex Brundle has now been examining Hamilton’s first 12 months at Ferrari ahead of the 2026 campaign.
He’s made the comparison between Hamilton and Ricciardo, which eventually led to the Australian losing his place on the grid before Christian Horner offered him a lifeline within the Red Bull setup.
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Lewis Hamilton’s ‘super noticeable’ move to Ferrari compared to Daniel Ricciardo’s failure at McLaren
Brundle was speaking about Hamilton’s time at Ferrari so far on the Rolling Start Podcast.
He explained: “I think that not only do they sometimes end up with a driver who might have had their magic moment where the car and the regulation set and the particular engineer they had at the time align.
“But because it’s Ferrari, it also becomes super noticeable when it doesn’t go well.
“There would be a couple of other examples of high-performing [drivers like] Ricciardo at McLaren.
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“High performing driver jumps across, maybe less in the limelight, maybe more in the midfield, maybe not in a Ferrari, right?
“But that kind of thing, that new environment, new engineer, new perspective, doesn’t quite work out.
“It happens all the time in motorsport. I just think because they’re world champions and because it’s Ferrari. We know, and we see, and we realise, and we recognise.”
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Daniel Ricciardo admitted getting ‘lost’ at McLaren, Lewis Hamilton can’t afford to make the mistake
Ricciardo’s two seasons at McLaren ended with a single victory at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, and while Norris couldn’t match that achievement, it was clear the young Brit was the future of the team.
When he left at the end of the 2022 season, Ricciardo admitted, via In The Fast Lane Podcast: “I think already last year during the summer break it occurred to me that I was driving very consciously, and it just wasn’t natural anymore, and I was just one step behind.
“At some point, we would have got a little too deep and [a] little too lost.
“I don’t know. It’s an interesting one. But from my side, I’m also like, ‘OK, look, I’m not perfect, sure I’ve got some weaknesses, this car happens to expose a few of them, it’s a place for me to work on’.
“But I still obviously didn’t find a way to gel with this car often enough.”
Hamilton will empathise with Ricciardo’s admission of feeling lost, especially as, towards the end of last season, he was getting nowhere near Charles Leclerc in qualifying.
Nigel Mansell is backing Hamilton to succeed this season under the new regulations, and that shake-up might be just what the seven-time world champion needs.
But if he doesn’t recover, then the parallels between Hamilton and Ricciardo will only grow as the campaign goes on.
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