One of the more incredible storylines in Formula 1 in 2023 definitely has to be the incredible comeback of Daniel Ricciardo. Just as Netflix was worrying about the absence of their charismatic Australian driver in the upcoming season of Drive to Survive, the Red Bull management came to their rescue.

They put in Daniel Ricciardo to replace the underperforming Nyck de Vries, and the rest, as they say, is history. However, despite getting a seat in 10 races in the season, the Honey Badger had to give up his seat for 5 races after the Dutch Grand Prix. An unfortunate accident led to his hand being broken, giving him another 5 race break.

Daniel Ricciardo’s tough times after the Dutch Grand Prix

During a recently released podcast P1 with Matt and Tommy, Ricciardo talked about a wide variety of subjects. From Netflix’s Drive to Survive to weird sleep patterns, the AlphaTauri driver revealed a lot about his life as an F1 driver. He also revealed how much he hated going to the hospital after the Dutch Grand Prix accident.

“My biggest hurdle was the surgery. I don’t like hospitals and I don’t like needles. Even though I’ve got tattoos, they are different.” However, for Daniel Ricciardo, there was a silver lining. “Fortunately. the surgery was two days after (the Dutch Grand Prix). I didn’t have to wait too long to overcome that hurdle. And once I’d had the surgery, I was like okay, I’m like through the thick of it in my head. Now it’s time to focus fully on recovery.”

Thankfully, the Australian had a lot of support in the form of his family, trainers, and doctors. “You don’t do anything alone. There’s always people that are going to help you along the way, in someway shape or form. Whether it’s my girlfriend, whether it’s Blake, whether it’s my family on the phone, facetiming every day, there’s the doctors the physios. Everyone’s doing their bit to get me through it.”

Read more: “He Pushed Daniel Ricciardo So Hard”: Christian Horner Marks the Day Max Verstappen Changed F1’s Course

Fortunately for the Honey Badger, his return to F1 was even better. In his second race back, in the Mexican Grand Prix, he out-qualified Sergio Perez for P4, and scored extremely valuable points for AlphaTauri, securing them the seventh place. With these performances, he’ll be hoping to get on the Red Bull second seat by 2025.

Ricciardo’s Red Bull second-seat hopes

While Ricciardo may have had a wonderful comeback to the sport, his seat at Red Bull is not a sure thing. Sergio Perez had a late return to form after Brazil and Liam Lawson showcased huge potential during his time at AlphaTauri. Some experts, like former Ferrari boss Peter Windsor, in fact, completely write Ricciardo off from the second seat and are hoping for a Max Verstappen and Lando Norris pairing instead.

Windsor said, “I don’t think Daniel, I think they probably think he’s not quick enough now, but really good bloke to have in the car, very good to have in the sim and all rest of it, but not probably quick enough to be in the other car.” He continues, “Lando would do a pretty good job, wouldn’t he? Lando’d be pretty much their perfect driver because they probably think he’s not quite as quick as Max, but he’s very capable of winning Grand Prix and taking up the slack if there is any that Max leaves, so, I would say if I was Marco and Christian, I’d be thinking of talking to Lando.”

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While Lando Norris is a wonderful driver in his own right, would he be willing to give up his guaranteed first driver seat in McLaren? Only time will tell.