Daniel Ricciardo’s chances of 2023 F1 seat dismissed by Jacques Villeneuve

Ricciardo was dropped by McLaren for next year and is currently looking for a seat on the grid next year

Jacques Villeneuve insists Daniel Ricciardo should not be surprised that he hasn’t been picked up by an F1 team yet, believing that almost half of his career has been “terrible.”

Ricciardo’s contract with McLaren was terminated a year early after a string of poor results this season, with compatriot and last year’s F2 champion Oscar Piastri replacing him.

Ricciardo, 33, is now looking for his sixth F1 team and has not ruled out the idea of taking a one-year sabbatical from the sport after 12 straight seasons.

Yet 1997 world champion Villeneuve was blunt in his assessment of Ricciardo’s chances of finding a new team, criticising his performance in recent years and stating that the modern cars “don’t seem to suit his driving style.”

“He had two terrible years at Renault and two even more terrible years at McLaren,” Villeneuve told F1 TV.

“That’s four years. Almost half of his Formula 1 career was bad. Alpine have no reason to take him, especially when he’s driven there before. The modern cars just don’t seem to suit his driving style.

“He was impressive at Red Bull. He showed amazing overtaking manoeuvres. He was ahead of Max at the beginning. But in the end Max started to get a handle on him. Then he switched. And after the switch something seems to have happened that he never managed to get a handle on. He never recovered from that.”

Villeneuve also dismissed the notion that Ricciardo should take a year away from the sport, in the manner of Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso in the past.

Jacques Villeneuve insists Daniel Ricciardo should not be surprised that he hasn’t been picked up by an F1 team yet (Getty Images)

“It could make him lazy,’ he explained. “You can take a year off if you’re an Alonso, a Schumacher, if you’ve been world champion and won a lot of races, if you know in the paddock that you’ll always be at your best, no matter what season. After four bad years, don’t do that.

“You take what you can get. If you have an offer to drive in Formula 1, then you take every cockpit. In public you will say you don’t want to drive for one of the back teams, but if that’s the only contract you can get, then you’ll sign it.”