The 2018 Formula One season will be the most important season for Daniel Ricciardo through his career in the sport thus far.
Daniel Ricciardo, 28, has driven full-time in Formula One for six seasons now, but no season has been more important for him than the 2018 season, his seventh season in the sport and fifth driving for Red Bull Racing, is set to be.
Ricciardo’s Formula One career began in 2011 when he drove in 11 races for HRT to end the season. His full-time career in the sport began in 2012 when he drove for Scuderia Toro Rosso, where he stayed for the 2013 season as well.
In the 2014 season, Ricciardo joined four-time defending champion Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull Racing and won his first three career races in the sport en route to a career-high 3rd place finish in the drivers standings ahead of his four-time champion teammate.
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In the three seasons since then, Ricciardo has been solid, finishing in 8th, 3rd and 5th place in the drivers standings in 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively. He has added two more wins to his career victory total over the course of those three seasons.
But the 2018 season will be Ricciardo’s most important season to date. After a 2017 season during which he lost 4th place in the drivers standings in the final race of the season thanks to the fact that he was forced to retire in three of the final four races of the season, he is not exactly 100% pleased with his situation at Red Bull Racing. He was forced to retire in six of the 20 races in 2017, and a number of those retirements came as a result of reliability issues.
The 2018 season is Ricciardo’s last season with Red Bull Racing under his current contract. Given the fact that he is so talented, it is widely believed that he will be the top target for both Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport and Scuderia Ferrari in the 2019 season.
As a result of this, Ricciardo will need to perform at a high level in the 2018 season to impress these teams so that he can potentially be signed by one of them in 2019. He will need to perform as well as he can perform with whatever equipment he has at Red Bull Racing.
The 2018 season is important for Red Bull Racing as well so that they can make Ricciardo want to stay in 2019, but it is more important for Ricciardo since Red Bull Racing already has Max Verstappen locked up through the 2020 season.
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While there are no guarantees that Red Bull Racing’s equipment will make Daniel Ricciardo a championship contender like he wants to be, he will still need to get the most out of his situation to impress Mercedes and Ferrari. And if the equipment is reliable, who knows? Maybe Ricciardo will be a championship contender in 2018 and thus want to return to Red Bull Racing in the 2019 season. Either way, the 2018 season is huge for the 28-year-old.