Why Ricciardo's F1 resurgence may have emerged at the perfect time

After Alex Albon produced a defensive masterclass at the Canadian Grand Prix, AlphaTauri was brushed to the bottom of Formula 1's 2023 constructors' championship standings. The two points it had scored, thanks to Yuki Tsunoda's brace of 10th-place finishes in Australia and Azerbaijan, looked like they'd only be added to in races of attrition thanks to a car that often went missing during races.

When the AT04 was launched, team principal Franz Tost targeted a top-six finish in the constructors' championship at an absolute minimum. Once the car's lack of performance was exposed, the Austrian was scathing in his assessment of the design team's efforts  during a press conference at the Saudi Arabian GP, citing a lack of trust in certain individuals working there.

Since then, the axe has swung a few times as the Italian squad looked for a turnaround. The most high profile of those was in the sacking of Nyck de Vries - a decision that this writer condemned at the time, but appears to have worked in the way that the team had hoped. For the most part, at least.

Bringing in Daniel Ricciardo in the diminutive Dutchman's stead was to be a mutually beneficial call; AlphaTauri had someone with battle-hardened F1 experience to help offer a focal point in translating the car's development cycle to the on-track performance. For Ricciardo, it offered a long shot in his aim to not only get back onto the F1 grid, but in competitive machinery.

It seemed at the time that an implicit desire to get back into the Red Bull team alongside Max Verstappen was going to be wholly unrealistic; Sergio Perez was not at his best at the time of Ricciardo's return in Hungary, but it looked like a mere blip following a strong start to 2023. Ricciardo had been out of the game for over six months, after being turfed out by McLaren as his overall pace relative to Lando Norris had regressed considerably.

Who'd have thought, by Mexico, that Ricciardo would have genuinely staked that claim as Perez continued to lose form? Alex Kalinauckas has already dissected Perez's first lap incident at his home race so we won't dwell on it here, but his false step, let's call it, contrasted directly to Ricciardo's excellent weekend in Mexico City.

PLUS: Mexican Grand Prix Driver Ratings

It's not been easy for Ricciardo, following the five-race layoff he faced in having to get his hand fixed and ready for action. Having to watch Liam Lawson be parachuted in and demonstrate his F1 credentials in that five-race spell must have been even more difficult, although the Singapore announcement that Ricciardo and Tsunoda would remain as the team's two-pronged strike force in 2024 will have eased the pressure.

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Lawson filled in for Ricciardo after the Australian picked up an injury at the Dutch GP

That allowed Ricciardo to focus on getting his recovery right, rather than rush back for Qatar and risk further injury. The MotoGP world provided a cautionary tale through Marc Marquez and his rush to recover from a broken arm, which only prolonged his issues, so taking it steady seemed the sensible option.

Ricciardo's Austin return was low-key and, by his own account, "pretty miserable" as he lacked overall fitness to cope with the barrage of medium-high speed corners in the opening sector. But he crucially completed the full distance, which had equipped him for Mexico City - not as demanding a circuit despite its own collection of sweepers in the second sector.

The pace was there from the start, from both team and driver. Rather than give up on the lacklustre early version of the AT04, AlphaTauri had poured resources into improving the package over the season, aiming to address the lack of downforce that had made racing it during the early season a chore. This deficit had masked a solid mechanical basis, which the team used to great effect in Mexico as it looked very handy at low speeds. Overlaying Charles Leclerc's pole lap to Ricciardo's fourth-place time in Q3, the differences in the two packages are evident; the Ferrari has the circuit licked in the high-speed zones, but the AlphaTauri shines in the tighter, lower-speed corners.

"I'll maintain the things that I've learned in that time off, and carry those with me for this Chapter 2 of my journey" Daniel Ricciardo

Ricciardo was even able to ward off Lewis Hamilton during the opening flurry of laps; the Mercedes driver eventually got by, but the Australian's path to a lonely fifth-place finish looked to be locked in until the red flag. George Russell's strong restart from the grid cost one position and Norris' late resurgence another, but Ricciardo was nonetheless satisfied with his efforts in the Mexican capital. He seems to have found his mojo once again, after an arduous road to recapture his previous successes.

Speaking in Zandvoort, a day before his hand-fracturing crash at Turn 3, Ricciardo spoke of the importance of his time away from F1. "In the six months off, I did a lot of personal growth, reflecting, and kind of just got things right again," he said. "[In the two first races,] not only on track, I think off track and the way the weekend ran and how I felt on a personal level, was exactly what I wanted and the level of happiness and enjoyment and drive and motivation. I think that was probably what I'd been looking for a little while.

"I'll maintain the things that I've learned in that time off, and carry those with me for this Chapter 2 of my journey. It's things that I'll hold along the way and make sure I don't get back into any old habits or anything like that. But it feels refreshing. I spoke actually to Fernando, I remember it was on a flight, I can't remember where it was, but he touched on the time off and the benefits of that and I certainly feel that. I know all of us are different and respond to different things; I wasn't sure if I would need 12 months off or two years or whatever it was, but the six months was really powerful for me."

This, aligned with AlphaTauri's steady work on the car, has increasingly paid dividends over the second half of the season. The aero package has been considerably changed to address that lack of downforce, with new wings, sidepods, and floors aimed at creating a more cohesive prospect on track.

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Ricciardo scored a potential $20m result for AlphaTauri at the Mexico GP

The Faenza squad had just three points prior to the summer break, as Tsunoda added a third in Belgium, but the second half has been much more fruitful. Lawson's ninth-placed finish in Singapore demonstrated an excellent display for a rookie in his third race, and Tsunoda's eighth place and fastest lap in Austin (initially 10th, prior to Hamilton and Leclerc's disqualifications) showed the team that clambering off the bottom of the championship table was possible; Haas and Alfa Romeo were just two points clear heading into Mexico.

Ricciardo's seventh catapulted AlphaTauri above them, and the team could have managed more had Tsunoda been more patient with his attempts to pass Oscar Piastri ahead. The team is now sat in eighth, 12 points behind Williams' current occupation of seventh. And, as AlphaTauri gets a bit more time with the Perth-born driver, it has started to identify his driving sensibilities and assist with tailoring the car to his needs.

"One of his big limitations has been the front end actually, coming back," contends AlphaTauri head of trackside engineering Jonathan Eddolls. "So the directions have been able to improve the front end of the car for him, except in the stability compromise. And as I say, then how that impacts the tyre temperatures through the corner and through the lap.

"Probably the car that we've got, I think it behaves. Maybe we haven't quite got the load or efficiency of some of the top teams. However, there are no big fundamental weaknesses of the car other than a lacking a bit of load. So I think coming in it's a car that behaves, he knows what it's going to do. And the fact that it does the same thing every lap corner to corner, it's given him the confidence to be able to throw the car into the corners and knows that it's going to stick and knows that it is going to do the same every time."

Whether 2024's driver market has one more unlikely twist, or if Ricciardo does end up sticking with AlphaTauri for a theoretical full year (notwithstanding any mid-seasons swaps), it appears that he's found himself in a working environment and a headspace conducive to making the second chapter of his F1 career work. Brazil will offer the next step of validation; he's never finished higher than fourth at Interlagos, but matching that will be a difficult task to achieve given the competitiveness of the F1 field behind Red Bull. Giving AlphaTauri more ammunition in its fight for seventh in the constructors' standings will be his primary aim and, if he's truly back, he'll offer his unwavering determination and recovering speed up to the flag in Abu Dhabi.

And, if his efforts this year have been enough to oust Perez from Red Bull, Ricciardo's resurgence will have been timed perfectly.

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Ricciardo's return to form has come at the perfect time to heap pressure on Perez