Daniel Ricciardo's career was always destined for a tragic ending and it might be finally happening!

Daniel Ricciardo has not had the best of starts to the 2022 F1 season. We can all go into the nitty-gritty of how he has been outclassed by Lando Norris in the same car, but that's common knowledge now. Signed on for a very high salary, the Australian driver was supposed to be the leading light at McLaren when he first joined the team in 2021.

Unfortunately, there has been a snowball effect of one thing going wrong after the other in the last 18 months for Ricciardo. We now have him staring at a situation where he could be looking at an early exit from the team as both the driver and the team seem to have lost patience.

The Australian's career has always been primed for a tragic end ever since he stepped up to drive for Red Bull in 2014. In 2022, that tragic ending might finally be unfolding before us.

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How did we reach here?

Well, to find out how we reached here, we need to take a look back at Daniel Ricciardo's F1 career. It all started with his promotion to Toro Rosso after half a season in the trenches with HRT in 2011.

Toro Rosso (2012-2013)

At Toro Rosso, Daniel Ricciardo was paired with Jean-Eric Vergne, another promising Red Bull junior driver. The two went hammer and tongs against each other for two years, but by the end of the second season, it became clear that Ricciardo was the better driver. Hence, when Mark Webber retired at the end of the 2013 F1 season, his fellow Aussie got the call to drive for Red Bull.

Red Bull (2014-2018)

In his first season with Red Bull in 2014, Daniel Ricciardo did the unthinkable by convincingly beating reigning four-time champion Sebastian Vettel.

In the eyes of many pundits and fans, Ricciardo had the best performance out of anyone on the grid in 2014. He picked up three wins, only behind the two Mercedes drivers. With Vettel deciding to make a move to Ferrari and emulate his idol Michael Schumacher, Ricciardo assumed the role of the team leader at Red Bull.

The 2015 season, however, featured a drop in Red Bull's performance as both Williams and Ferrari appeared to hold an edge. Ricciardo still did his best and was widely considered one of the better drivers on the grid.

The 2016 season saw Max Verstappen's introduction to Red Bull and a win in his very first race in Barcelona. Ever since, Red Bull started a process of slowly but steadily leaning toward him. Ricciardo held the upper hand in 2016 and things were more or less even in 2017. It all changed in 2018, however, when a rather rash collision between the two at Baku saw them both facing the heat from the team instead of only Verstappen, who was far more aggressive than Ricciardo.

Renault (2019-2020)

At the end of the 2018 F1 season, Daniel Ricciardo made a shock move to Renault to build a team around him and do something similar to what Lewis Hamilton had done so successfully at Mercedes. Only a year later, Ricciardo made the switch to McLaren after looking at the team's growth trajectory and seemingly not being happy with what he saw at Renault in a year.

Ricciardo's stay at the French outfit was short and sweet. He was the lead driver against both Esteban Ocon and Nico Hulkenberg and gave the team its first podium. His move to McLaren did seem justified as the Woking-based squad was making improvements everywhere. It had finished third in the championship at the end of the 2020 F1 season and it did appear that this was the perfect logical progression for the Australian.

McLaren (2021-Present)

That brings us to Daniel Ricciardo's stay at McLaren. Life at the British outfit started in a rather uncomfortable manner for Ricciardo as he was unable to adapt his driving style to the car. Meanwhile, his teammate Lando Norris outperformed him for pretty much the entire season except for a handful of cases here and there with one of them being the Italian Grand Prix that Ricciardo won. The 2021 season was somewhat written off for this very reason as it was assumed that the car under Ricciardo was not to his liking.

The 2022 F1 season was expected to be a return for the Daniel Ricciardo of old. He was expected to be back at his best, driving like he always used to, fast and consistent, and being one of the best on the grid.

Sadly, though, the season has not panned out that way as the advantageous gap that Norris had last season still exists. To rub further salt into all of this, Zak Brown, the McLaren boss, has come out and publicly said that Ricciardo's performances ever since he joined the team have not met either the team's or the driver's expectations.

Consequently, Ricciardo did look slightly tentative about everything and was not his usual self throughout the Monaco GP weekend. To be brutally honest about everything, this might just be the time when the Ricciardo-McLaren marriage finally heads for a split.

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Why was it always heading towards a tragic end?

This brings us to the crucial point that we've been trying to make. Every driver feels he is worthy of being a world champion and is the best in the world until he meets someone as good or better than him. In the case of Daniel Ricciardo, in retrospect, his run against Sebastian Vettel in 2014 was probably not the best thing to have happened to him.

Before that season, Ricciardo was considered a promising prospect, a driver who was going to do great in the sport with the talents that he had at his disposal. After 2014, the outlook changed completely! Ricciardo was now the team leader at Red Bull. He was considered one of the best drivers on the grid alongside the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, and Vettel, the driver he beat earlier.

So was he really on the same level as the top drivers on the grid? Or was this the case of Ricciardo becoming Vettel's teammate in a season where the latter was not only disgruntled about the new regulations (something that he publicly admitted to at the time) but also wasn't motivated by the prospect of driving for Red Bull anymore?

While Vettel's performances saw a massive dip, Ricciardo, who in his own right was a brilliant driver, was made to look even better in this situation. The first true indication of Daniel Ricciardo not being at the level of a top driver became apparent when he teamed up with Max Verstappen. The Dutch driver, who was just a teenager at the time, was still very rough around the edges. So in 2016 and 2017, overall, Ricciardo was the more impressive of the two.

Even in these two seasons, however, there were races where Verstappen would put everything together and leave Ricciardo trailing. This happened at the 2016 Brazilian GP, where Max Verstappen pretty much schooled everyone on the grid, or even in Malaysia 2017 when he won the race, but Ricciardo would finish around 22 seconds behind.

Come 2018 season and Verstappen had Ricciardo figured out, beating him comfortably. After a short stint at Renault, where Ricciardo went up against and beat Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon, it was his joining McLaren that has finally led to a tragic realization.

Now, the realization is not that Daniel Ricciardo is a bad F1 driver. It is just that while he can compete with the best on the grid, he cannot be a World Champion!

In F1, there are only a limited number of teams with whom you can challenge for the title and win it. The thing is, all of these teams are looking for truly elite talents like Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, or George Russell. Daniel Ricciardo is just not that.

He's a great F1 driver and truly deserves to be on the grid, but whenever he goes up against the elites, he misses a tenth or two.

Now, having said that, it does not mean that his struggles against Norris are a reflection of where he stands at the moment on the F1 grid. Not at all! The Norris situation has more to do with the entire McLaren design philosophy that hasn't worked with Ricciardo. In a different ecosystem, Ricciardo could do a much better job against Norris, just like he did in Monza last season.

In the 2014 season, once Ricciardo had dispatched Sebastian Vettel out of the team, a dream was born for the Australian. A dream in which he was the best driver on the grid and a future world champion. That dream has never looked like fulfilling itself throughout his career and with the way his Monaco GP ended, the tragic ending that was always feared for Ricciardo is unfolding right in front of us.

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What's next for Daniel Ricciardo?

Unlike various pundits, we don't think Daniel Ricciardo has lost his competitiveness altogether, nor does it appear that he cannot do a good job in an F1 car. He, however, cannot do that at McLaren! That marriage has reached its expiry date and at the end of the season, we might be looking at the two entities parting ways for the better.

That, however, is where the question comes up about Ricciardo's future. While the Australian loves racing and is only 32 years old, there are indications that his future in F1 might not involve him fighting for the title. Will he have the motivation to continue if he knows there is very little chance of him achieving his dream?

If he doesn't, we are looking at a rather early retirement from the sport for Daniel Ricciardo. If he isn't looking to retire, however, there are options!

For Daniel Ricciardo, a possible seat could open up for him at Alfa Romeo or Aston Martin for next season should he be willing to take it. At his age, he's not a has-been by any means. He's still a capable driver who is still very good and should deliver strong results.

That's about it, though, and there's no climb to a front-running seat at the moment. More importantly, it does appear that Daniel Ricciardo has finally found his ceiling in F1. That ceiling is just a level below the best drivers on the grid.

Daniel Ricciardo was always a very good driver. Maybe even a championship candidate in the right car as well. Was he, however, a truly elite driver in F1? Maybe not, maybe that was just not his ceiling, and maybe that is why Daniel Ricciardo's career dream of becoming a world champion has finally come to an end!