Ricciardo on Jackie Stewart’s wise words to him

After the Singapore Grand Prix, which became Daniel Ricciardo’s 257th and last race in Formula 1, he returned to his home country Australia and, as they say, disappeared from the radar screens.

Millions of his fans – and Daniel has almost ten million followers on social networks – probably continue to open his pages in the hope of learning something new, but for now he prefers to remain silent. If he decided to take a break, that’s completely understandable. It will rather be a surprise to everyone if, for example, he suddenly flies to his beloved Austin, but in the role of an outside observer…

However, we will have to wait and see, but for now it makes sense to remember the words Ricciardo said in an interview with Sky Sports in Singapore. Sir Jackie Stewart, the legendary Scottish racer and three-time world champion, once gave Daniel advice, which he did not follow.

“I remember it was in Singapore in 2014 – it was my breakthrough year, and Sir Jackie called me into the hotel lobby and said something,” Daniel shared his memories of the episode that took place after he had secured three maiden victories. – Here are his words: “Listen to me, let me know if you ever want to talk, because not everything will always be as easy as you think now.”

You could say he just wanted to prepare me for future setbacks – and that’s when my business really went uphill. Of course, that year I did not win the championship, but it seemed that everything was very easy for me. Obviously I’m exaggerating now, because in reality it wasn’t that simple.

When he told me this, I generally reacted something like this: “Yes, I’m fine, what are you talking about? There are no problems, I’m not afraid of anyone – what’s the point of this conversation?”

But the next year I quickly understood what he was talking about, because in 2015 I was plagued with difficulties. I think the most correct approach is to never let yourself get caught up in the clouds, but you should also try not to get too discouraged and always stay on your own wave. In general, you just have to try to stand firm on your feet.”

In 2015, Ricciardo actually achieved no victories, then climbed to the podium only twice and finished the season in 8th place in the individual standings behind Daniil Kvyat, his then teammate at Red Bull Racing, although he only lost 3 points to the Russian Director. But the following year Daniel pulled himself together to take third place in the championship, win the Malaysian Grand Prix and finish on the podium seven more times.

All that remains is to add something like: “Everything that happened after that is already history.” But I would like to hope that the story of the racer from the Australian city of Perth is not over yet and that we will hear about him again.