This is how the 2023 season has gone for Daniel Ricciardo: Red Bull welcomed him ‘home’ as its reserve driver. AlphaTauri—arguably the slowest team on the grid this season—offered him a full-time seat. He made his highly-anticipated racing return, only to injure himself three weekends in. Now, in his second race weekend following his second return, the AlphaTauri man out-qualified the driver standing in his way to his fairytale ending—Sergio Perez. The best part? Ricciardo did it at the Mexican GP in Perez’s backyard.

Considering how Perez has been performing over the past few months—with frequent Q1 and Q2 exits—it may not sound too surprising that an AlphaTauri out-qualified him. But what is surprising is that Ricciardo managed it in Q3, the top-10 shootout in Mexico. And boy, did he do it in style.

Daniel Ricciardo has officially returned to F1

Remember the past two seasons Ricciardo spent at McLaren? Do you recall how lost he looked, and how defeated he felt? But when he won the Italian GP in 2021, he said, “I never left.” The thing is, that day was probably one of the only good memories the Aussie had of 2021 and 2022. After the 2022 season, he quite literally left the sport, but now that he’s made his return, it couldn’t have gotten better than his performance during qualifying in Mexico.

The Mexican GP so far has been the stuff of dreams for Ricciardo. When he joined AlphaTauri after the British GP, there’s little chance he would’ve expected to be challenging Red Bull this season. However, with the confidence he had coming into this race, coupled with a helping hand from his teammate Yuki Tsunoda, Ricciardo is finally back. His AT04 showed great pace leading up to qualifying, and he ensured he maximized the car’s potential.

During qualifying, he was right up there with the top dogs (and Perez) in Q1 and Q2. In Q3, he put in a scintillating lap to qualify in P4. Needless to say, he was ecstatic. When he crossed the line and his engineer told him he was P4, he said, “Alright, alright,” to which his engineer responded, “Enchante.” In his trademark Ricciardo style, he replied, “Enchante, mon ami.” Commentator Alex Jacques was just as delighted and poured his heart out. “Welcome back to Formula 1, Daniel Ricciardo. When he’s quick, it’s magic. He proved it in 2018 here [with a pole position]. He’s proved it again today. The car tenth in the Constructors’ Championship will line up P4 on the grid tomorrow for the Mexico City Grand Prix.”

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Wondering where Perez is lining up? P5. And guess who’s lining up alongside Ricciardo? The man he wants to become teammates with again—Max Verstappen. While getting back to Red Bull is something he is thinking about, AlphaTauri is his priority right now. And his performance made him want to “rip my shirt off.”.

Ricciardo embodied his “All Good, All Ways” motto after qualifying

If there’s one thing Ricciardo is known for, it’s his smile. Considering his qualifying outing, you can almost expect how he reacted while talking to the media. You could practically hear the smile in his voice and feel the confidence oozing out of him. Coming into this weekend, he knew he wanted to make up for his subpar (by his standards) performance in Austin. He knew AlphaTauri had a top-10 car there but couldn’t do much with it. He came to Mexico wanting to change that.

In his post-qualifying interview, he told F1, “Coming into the weekend, I couldn’t wait to get back in the car. I was as excited and hungry as I’ve felt in a very long time. So really happy to keep those emotions bottled in and use them well on track.” Being the filling in a Red Bull sandwich, he couldn’t be happier with a P4. “I feel, sometimes, [with] these things, you either get those happy tears or you get jacked up and pretty fired up. That’s certainly how I feel. Lots of good energy right now. I just want to rip my shirt off.”

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Do you think Daniel Ricciardo can produce another Honey Badger special on Sunday?