Daniel Ricciardo said he has received "unexpected" messages of support from fellow Formula 1 racer Sebastian Vettel while navigating the most difficult year of his racing career.
The Aussie will drop off the F1 grid at the end of the season, having had his McLaren contract cut short by a year. Amid his ongoing struggles for form and results, the team decided a fresh start with 2021 F2 champion Oscar Piastri was the best way forward from their point of view.
But it leaves Ricciardo staring into the face of the very real possibility that his F1 career might be over. He will have no race seat in 2023, and some have suggested he might struggle to get back onto the grid considering his age and struggles this year.
Amid all the doom and gloom, Vettel – who is voluntarily leaving the sport to spend more time with his family – has made a point of reaching out to Ricciardo. The 33-year-old revealed as much to reporters in Sao Paulo.
"I won't go into detail in terms of what was said or whatever, but as a general comment he's picked up the phone multiple times this year and just been a friend," he said. "[He has] shown care and checking in, as a true friend would do. To have friends like that is so important, but it's also not that common in terms of on the grid.
"We get on as drivers, and you do build friendships. But to have that kind of deeper level of friendship... some gestures he made this year and some of the kindness he's shown towards me was in a way kind of unexpected. [It was] super nice of him."
Asked when the messages from Vettel had begun, Ricciardo replied: "It had a bit more emphasis around the time of all the contract stuff happening. When there was a lot of noise – I don't want to single him out because there were some other drivers – but he was the one that was certainly picking up the phone pretty often and checking in."
The strain that this season has put on Ricciardo – who usually always wears a beaming smile in public – was evident after the United States Grand Prix last month. In a gut-wrenching TV interview after that race, he appeared close to tears as he admitted: "I don't know how I'm continuing."
He later said of that moment : "Of course, it's not typical in a place like Austin for me to feel like that. There's so much about that weekend that I love. So it has to be pretty bad for me to feel like that in a place like that. It's just there's been a lot of times where I've felt a little bit like a passenger, in a way."
