Ricciardo ‘mojo’ missing, says world champion

Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images

Eight-time Grand Prix winner Daniel Ricciardo needs to find his ‘mojo’ if he has any hope of a top seat – or even staying in Formula One – according to 1996 world champion Damon Hill.

Ricciardo heads into this weekend’s 2024 Australia Formula 1 Grand Prix, where Hill will be part of the Sky Sports broadcast team, after a dismal start to the season.

In the first two races, he was outperformed by his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, with performances between drivers in the same car the most common way to assess results.

This has included Ricciardo finishing sixteenth in the previous race at Saudi Arabia, where he also suffered the indignation of spinning out while being lapped by the Red Bull Racing entry of Sergio Perez.

Ricciardo had been widely tipped to replace Perez at Red Bull Racing if the Mexican driver underperforms alongside world champion team-mate Max Verstappen.

Yet it’s the Australian whose seat in an F1 team now looks under threat, sitting 17th of 20 drivers in the points standings ahead of the Melbourne event.

MORE: 2024 Formula One Australian Grand Prix: On-track schedule

Former F1 champion and Sky Sports commentator Damon Hill. Photo by Qian Jun/MB Media/Getty Images.

“I mean, the mojo seems to be missing a little bit,” Hill told Drive at the 2024 Adelaide Motorsport Festival.

When asked if he thought Riccardo was no longer a chance to replace Perez, given his lacklustre 2024 form so far, Hill said: “I think it's too early to say.

“I think that he's had a bit of a bad race in Saudi Arabia, which, I'm not sure what the reasons for that were, but there's going to be a lot of competition if there is a space [at Red Bull Racing].”

“Checo’s [Perez] doing quite a good job to hang on to what he's got.”

After being dropped by McLaren at the end of 2022 – replaced by Australian driver Oscar Piastri – Riccardo returned to the F1 grid for the Hungarian Grand Prix in July 2023, replacing rookie Nyck de Vries.

Only two races into his comeback, Ricciardo crashed in practice for the Dutch Grand Prix, sidelining him for the following four Grands Prix in a disrupted return to the sport.

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