It’s been an incredibly topsy-turvey year for Daniel Ricciardo. The McLaren ousting, Red Bull’s helping hand, and the AlphaTauri redemption, but it comes with more uncertainty. However, Ricciardo always maintained his wide contagious smile and never let his bad moments get the best of him. But he’s only human, and he admitted how deep the Dutch GP injury cut him recently.

The AlphaTauri man took a road trip to Vegas with Matt from the P1 with Matt and Tommy podcast. During their car ride, the Australian admitted there was a moment that left him devastated. It was a moment on his way to the hospital soon after his FP2 crash into turn 3 in Zandvoort that broke his hand. The moment gave him an overwhelming realization of what was to follow and how all his hard work was going to become redundant. This moment, despite all that he suffered in the past couple of years, made him the “most sad”.

Ricciardo revealed, “The thing that made me the most sad – So when we drove to the hospital.. on the way there we drove past kind of like a park gym, so there were pull bars and stuff and I saw these guys doing pull-ups and that actually cut me real deep. I spent, especially like the summer break you know normally when you’re boozing and having fun, I spent summer break just training my b*tt off. So I was loving training again and everything was just like good and I felt healthy and strong.”

The Aussie then highlighted the realization he had when he saw the guys train, “Then I saw these guys doing pulls ups as my hand’s broken and all I could think of was like I’m not going to be able to train for how many weeks. All the work I’ve done, a lot of that is probably going to come undone. There was just a lot of little things as well which cut me a little bit.”

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Even a driver of Ricciardo’s positivity was dejected after he suffered a hand fracture during the Dutch GP. The professional in him was regretting all the hard work that was going to be nullified because of injury. However, such is life, especially in F1, where there are lows and there are highs. However, despite his seemingly never-ending streak of bad luck, everyone around him was confident in his comeback.

Despite another blow, Red Bull boss Christian Horner stayed optimistic about Daniel Ricciardo

The Red Bull boss is a big fan of Ricciardo, which is exactly why he was instantly offered a role at the Austrian team. Christian Horner was delighted to have Ricciardo back and amazed by his output as well on the sim. So giving him the AlphaTauri seat was a no-brainer for the team. In fact, the boss was confident in the Australian despite the Dutch GP setback.

His statement to the media after the accident reflected this confidence in Ricciardo. Horner told Sky Sports, “He’s got a good medical team that he’ll be working with and these guys recover incredibly quickly. He’s a tough Aussie and I’m sure he’ll be eager to get back in the car as quickly as he can.” 

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Ricciardo did not jump as soon as he could and took his time with his recovery. However, when he did, it felt like he had never left, and this was the confidence the team had in him, rightly so.