Daniel Ricciardo fired by RB F1 team, replaced by Liam Lawson
- Red Bull Racing feeder team RB has dropped Daniel Ricciardo
- Liam Lawson will race with RB for the remainder of the season
- Lawson may be promoted to Red Bull if he manages to outperform current RB driver Yuki Tsunoda
Daniel Ricciardo has been dropped by the RB Formula 1 team, potentially marking the end of his F1 career.
The Red Bull Racing feeder team announced on Thursday that Liam Lawson will replace Ricciardo for the remainder of the 2024 season.
The news isn’t a huge surprise as Ricciardo hinted at last weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix that the race might be the last time he hops in an F1 car in a competitive setting.
Lawson has been part of Red Bull’s driver development program since 2019 and served as a reserve driver since 2022. He has already participated in five F1 races, all of them in 2023 when he sat in for an injured Ricciardo at AlphaTauri, the team that was rebranded RB in 2024.
Liam Lawson – Photo via RB
Lawson drove impressively in those five races, even managing to finish in the points at that season’s Singapore Grand Prix by running ninth. Should he manage to outshine RB’s other driver, Yuki Tsunoda, this season, there’s a chance he’ll eventually be promoted to the Red Bull team as a replacement for Sergio Perez, who has been bogged down throughout most of the current season.
Ricciardo has enjoyed eight wins in his F1 career, most of them earned at Red Bull. He made his debut midway through the 2011 season, with former team Hispania Racing, as the replacement for Narain Karthikeyan. He joined Toro Rosso the next season, the team that would later become AlphaTauri and is today RB. Over the next couple of years, he impressed enough to gain a seat at Red Bull in 2013, as the replacement for Mark Webber and teammate for Sebastian Vettel.
Ricciardo eventually joined Renault in 2019 and then McLaren in 2021. He was dropped from McLaren midway through 2022, after which he rejoined Red Bull as a test driver in late 2022 in an effort to regain a seat. He was then signed to RB midway through the 2023 season after the team dropped rookie Nyck de Vries. However, he missed most of the remainder of the 2023 season due to wrist injury sustained during a practice session for the Dutch Grand Prix.
Ricciardo is one of the strongest personalities in F1 and with any luck will remain as a presenter.