Daniel Ricciardo’s latest gesture to Oscar Piastri makes it pretty clear that the 33-year-old harbours no hard feelings towards the man who has taken his spot on the Formula 1 grid.
Ricciardo will be a much-missed absentee from the action this season after having his McLaren contract cut short by a year. Replacing him is fellow Australian Piastri, who was brought in from Alpine after a lengthy legal battle over his signature.
McLaren will hope the 2021 Formula 2 champion can get to grips with his car than Ricciardo ever managed in his two years with the team. While untested in F1, Piastri boasts a stellar record in the junior series and has been tipped as a potential future title-winner.
Without a race seat for the upcoming season, Ricciardo has signed back with Red Bull as a reserve. While some in his position might be bitter about losing his place, the eight-time race winner appear not to hold a grudge against his replacement.
On the contrary, he has been spending time with him. The two Aussies were photographed in the same car together this week, Piastri somewhat ironically behind the wheel of an orange McLaren with Ricciardo in the passenger seat.
The Red Bull man went one step further and has given some useful advice to his younger compatriot. He said: “I think just go out and drive. I know that sounds like a really lazy response but it’s just go and drive. Learn, be a sponge, but drive.
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“Don’t set the bar too high for yourself – if you end up doing better than maybe what you thought, awesome, but just take it race by race. But as long as you are learning and you feel like you are improving every race, I think that is all you can kind of ask for yourself.
“I think also even if we didn’t quite get it right from my side, with McLaren I think they still would’ve learnt a bunch from our two years and maybe things where we deviated, went a little wrong or sideways.
“So, I think all that, that knowledge can be passed on to Oscar and I think they will. I would like to think they will have a little bit of a head start from that point of view.”
