The increasing hurdles in front of Ricciardo's potential Red Bull return

“The most excited people when Danny Ricc came back was Netflix.”

Nestling nicely in amongst Williams driver Logan Sargeant’s torturing of the English lexicon is a good point. One the American was making to a Netflix camera in the latest series of Drive to Survive. In 2023, the hit streaming show got back its undisputed biggest star, almost without him ever having to leave.

You can see the production company’s delight in the sixth series, where Ricciardo’s two returns are granted two episodes. But this was no Netflix navel-gazing exercise. The Australian became one of 2023’s biggest stories with his return to replace the ousted Nyck de Vries at what was then called AlphaTauri, plus his own second return – latterly from injury following his crash and broken hand at the Dutch Grand Prix.