Reports Claim That Daniel Ricciardo Will Not Drive For McLaren In 2023

Formula 1 entered its month-long summer break following the Hungarian Grand Prix. Most years, this time of year would be limited to news about off-track things like Lewis Hamilton joining the Denver Broncos ownership group or Keanu Reeves' upcoming docuseries about Brawn GP.

Still, that hasn't stopped drivers' market news from not just heating up, but practically going nuclear.

The latest is that multiple outlets are reporting that McLaren has informed driver Daniel Ricciardo that he will not have a seat with the team for the 2023 season.

Several outlets reported that McLaren had told Ricciardo his services would no longer be needed past this season. However, as Chris Medland noted in a piece for Racer.com, the details of Ricciardo's exit are still being hammered out by the team.

Ricciardo's potential departure from McLaren caps off a wild week-and-a-half in Formula 1 when it comes to the 2023 starting grid. It started when 4-time world champion Sebastian Vettel announced that he will retire at the end of the season.

This caught his current team, Aston Martin, off guard and led to them signing 2-time champion Fernando Alonso away from Alpine. This was thought to pave the way for highly touted Alpine reserve driver Oscar Piastri to get a seat on the grid, but the drama wasn't quite finished.

Alpine announced Piastri as Alonso's replacement, but that led to Piastri dropping the following bombshell on Twitter:

That announcement sent shockwaves through the paddock (and also did incredible numbers online; nearly 400,000 likes. Good for Oscar). Given that seats in F1 are at a premium, Piastri's announcement seemed to imply that he had an opportunity away from Alpine, with lots of speculation that he was close to a deal with McLaren.

News of Ricciardo's impending departure means that the team could be looking to swap Aussies for 2023.

Ricciardo is an immensely talented and popular driver, but his season and a half with McLaren have been underwhelming.

He's been consistently outperformed by his teammate Lando Norris, and it's been abundantly clear that Ricciardo has had trouble getting the most out of his car in both 2021 and 2022.

Daniel Ricciardo of Australia driving the McLaren MCL36 Mercedes (Photo by Francois Nel/Getty Images)

If Ricciardo is leaving the team after this season, which would involve buying out the rest of his contract as he was signed to drive for McLaren in 2023. It's also thought that McLaren would also like to help Ricciardo land another seat in F1 before finalizing their announcement about Piastri joining the team.